


Bury Us Alive

by nekoma



Series: These Days, These Days [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Best Friends to Lovers, Childhood Friends, M/M, Panic Attacks, SO MUCH ANGST IM SORRY, Social Anxiety, slight mention of homophobia, slightly canon re: their backgrounds, they both have sexuality crises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-22
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 16:18:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4398836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nekoma/pseuds/nekoma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’ll wait for me?”</p><p>Kuroo ruffled Kenma’s then jet-black hair. “Always.”</p><p>Chasing. That was the word he was looking for. He felt like he was always chasing after Kuroo, and sometimes, times like this, he felt like his best friend was completely out of reach.</p><p>This story takes place a year before the YAAAIAAA (what an acronym) college AU, in which Kuroo goes to university and Kenma is left behind all alone for the first time since he met his best friend eight years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> kuroken spinoff for the college au which is...actually slightly canon in terms of details, meaning they go to nekoma and play volleyball etc so you don't have to read the bokuaka fic before reading this as this is quite standalone. basically i sat down one day and my masochistic brain asked, "what would happen when kuroo leaves for university and kenma is alone in high school?" which led to a lot of angst brewing in my head which led to this thing. 
> 
> this leads me to my next point. angst. so much angst in this fic compared to yaaaiaaa. i am so sorry. 
> 
> also the first chapter is quite an information dump of kenma's backstory since he was a kid and how he met kuroo up until high school. i love kenma a whole lot and somehow...got very carried away...when i was writing his backstory so sorry about that. i promise the other chapters aren't so information bulky.
> 
> that said, the angst only intensifies as the story progresses. *sunglasses emoji*
> 
> title of the fic is also another one by starfucker, [bury us alive](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcukstLwNPw).
> 
> as always, happy reading!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knew that was bound to happen what with their one-year age gap, he just didn’t know it would come with a free Strong Feeling of Apprehension that lasted for months.

_Calm down, it’s not like this hasn’t happened before._

Kenma was trying his best to regain his composure —he could feel moisture start to accumulate in his eye sockets, much to his own horror— as he waved goodbye to his best friend. The summer break was almost over, which meant that the academic term for Japanese universities was starting soon. 

Which also meant that Kuroo was leaving for Meiji University. Leaving home. Today. 

The tall, lean teenage boy with a mop of black bedhair was wearing his red Nekoma High volleyball jacket —what a nerd, honestly— a sling bag slung over his shoulder and a duffel bag in one hand as he hugged his mother and grandmother. Kuroo-san —Kuroo’s dad— was already in the car filled with Kuroo’s massive piles of stuff he was bringing to university with him. Kenma stood at a distance from the family; not that he was a stranger to the Kuroo family nor them to him, but he didn’t want to intrude on the touching moment Kuroo’s family was having together. Immediate family came first after all, even if Kuroo constantly reminded Kenma that he, too, was family (and likewise for Kenma but he would probably never dare to admit that out loud). 

Despite that, he couldn’t help the growing ache in both his chest and gut, as if the folds of his stomach was turning themselves inside and out, and the sensation of something pressing against his chest, making it hard for him to breathe. He was close to crying, he was aware, and although it wasn’t as if Kuroo had never seen the rare moments he’d shed tears before, he couldn’t allow him to see him cry _now_. Kuroo probably didn’t need that right now since he was the one leaving home, and Kenma definitely didn’t need that either.

Which was why when Kuroo turned towards him, Kenma hurriedly lowered his gaze and reminded himself to take deep breaths to calm his rapid pulse rate. He could sense the other boy approaching him slowly— and then he stopped in front of him. Before Kenma could gather the courage to look up into those feline-like eyes that were scarily similar to his, he was enveloped in a hug so tight Kenma was positive he was lifted two centimetres off the ground.

“You’re not crying, are you, Kenma?” Kuroo’s voice was muffled against Kenma’s shirt where he buried his head in, and his breath sent a tingle down Kenma’s spine. He smelled like Miyoshi detergent, a scent Kenma immediately associated with his best friend.

Kenma closed his eyes, took a deep breath and cleared his throat. “Of course not.”

“Because if you are, I’ve got tissue paper in my back pocket right now.”

“I told you I’m not crying.”

There were a few minutes of silence as they remained in that position; Kenma could start to feel nagging worries gaining leeway into the back of his mind about what Kuroo’s family might possibly think and interpret from seeing them like this, but he wasn’t able to focus on that too much being wrapped in Kuroo’s arms and threatened with the ominous looming of his best friend’s departure. 

“I’m going to miss you,” Kenma blurted out before he could stop himself. 

Kuroo’s hug tightened. “I’m going to miss you too, Kenma.”

The embrace lasted for another minute before Kuroo finally pulled away and Kenma let him. “Chiyoda’s not too far away, it’s only an hour and a half’s train ride away,” He reached out and booped Kenma on the nose. Kenma scowled half-heartedly. “And I’ll be back every weekend. I promise. It’ll just be like always, except…except I’m taking a rather longer vacation than usual. I’ll even bring you back some famous Chiyoda apple pie.” 

Kenma offered a small smile. No. It definitely won’t be like always. The thought sent another pang to the heart, but if he showed any emotion of pain on his face, Kuroo didn’t mention it.

“Promise,” Kenma murmured, just loud enough for both of them to hear. 

Kuroo smiled, a different one from the smirking smile he normally had on his face during usual interactions with everyone. Kenma had only seen this kind of smile very rarely, and only during serious conversations they’d both had late in the night, mostly about the future.

“I promise,” Kuroo ruffled Kenma’s bleached hair one last time before turning away and heading for the car. 

Kenma waved until the black Mitsubishi was out of sight. And then he allowed a single tear to fall.

 

* * *

 

Kenma wasn’t sure what sort of powers were at work when Kuroo Tetsurou showed up at his house 10 years ago with a volleyball under his arm and a huge grin on his face, but he was secretly thankful for them. Kenma had never shown any interest in other people since he was young, and at first his parents chalked it up as shyness and/or a lack of exposure to other people at such a tender young age, but gradually it became apparent to them and everyone else that Kenma would really rather spend all 24 hours of a day playing on his PSP or phone than make small talk with strangers.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried before. He was aware that his parents’ grown-up friends and even other kids from his elementary school thought of his behaviour as strange and out of the norm, and he both feared and loathed that perception of being “weird”. So he tried talking to the other children in his elementary school class. He called out “good morning” to his desk neighbours every morning but they were usually already talking too loudly about a new video game they bought to even hear him, and Kenma didn’t particularly feel motivated nor compelled to raise his voice to repeat himself and join in their conversations. 

That didn’t mean he wasn’t listening in, though. His eyes would be glued to the PSP screen but he could still hear the threads of conversations his classmates were weaving, and the worst part was Kenma understood perfectly about the content of their discussions, particularly those involving video games. It was the worst because he _knew_ he could be a part of their group if he could. _If he could._ Which he couldn’t. He didn’t really understand what was wrong with himself, either; sometimes a few kids would see him on his PSP and gather around to ask him questions, but Kenma found it incredibly difficult to give answers that were beyond a word or two. He picked up from his observations of his classmates that people usually continued or initiated a conversation by elaborating on their answers or asking a question in return, but whenever he tried to mimic the same thing, his mind would either turn up blank or he would say something completely strange which often led to the other party giving an awkward laugh and saying that they had somewhere else to be before turning away to leave. 

The sight of other people’s backs walking away from him wasn’t one that was unfamiliar to Kenma anymore, and the more he observed and tried, the more he was afraid of this, of people turning away from him, of rejection. So in the end, he just stopped trying altogether.

Gradually, the voices around him became hushed, but he could sometimes still pick up the occasional “Kozume-kun’s pretty weird, isn’t he?” followed by a “Shhh! Not so loud! He can hear you!” and at first it hurt really, really badly because he just didn’t know what else to do anymore, but he slowly learned to get accustomed to it. To say that he was over it, over all these snide remarks people made about him was completely untrue, but he knew the only thing he could do was accept that he wasn’t going to be like his classmates, and that they would probably never like him, and that was that.

Despite that, he still couldn’t help but be overtly conscious of what people might think of him and what they were talking about him whenever he was out of earshot. Hence, he had subconsciously developed a knack for noticing the slightest change in others’ body languages and their voice intonations and what that could possibly be interpreted as. It was a gigantic pain in the ass, Kenma came to realise, because it led to the anxiety of knowing how people felt towards him but being wholly unable to do a thing to change it. And Kenma learned to deal with this festering anxiety by choosing to fully concentrate on the virtual reality in the games he played on his PSP instead of the literal reality he was living in even and especially in the presence of other people.

And then Kuroo showed up, and Kenma finally had someone he could actually call a friend, but more importantly, he was also someone who would call Kenma a friend.

It was fairly ironic that Kenma managed to become friends with Kuroo through a sport, considering Kenma was of the opinion that there was no greater punishment in life than unnecessary energy exertion. It was early summer when the sweltering heat seemed like a furnace turned to the highest notch, and eight-year-old Kenma had no intentions of playing his video games while being roasted alive in the house so he had resorted to sitting on the patio outside his house, game console gripped in both his hands as usual, when someone called out to him. 

He ignored this for a good few minutes, sure that the “Hey!” was meant for someone else —a neighbour maybe, or even a stray cat— until it carried on for four times and progressively got too loud to ignore.

Kenma looked up from the screen, eyes widening at the sight of a young boy who was almost his age with messy black hair standing not too far away from him. He was holding a volleyball under his left arm, his right arm waving towards —Kenma turned around, saw that he was the only one around within the vicinity and then turned back with shock more pronouncedly written on his face. Kenma. He was waving towards Kenma. 

Kenma could only stare, his game left unpaused.

“Hey!” The kid shouted. “You’re Kenma, right?”

Kenma continued staring.

“My dad told me Kozume-san has a son my age. They work in the same company. My dad and your dad, I mean.” The boy took a few steps forward and permitted himself to sit down next to Kenma, a wide grin on his face that Kenma took to interpret as excitement. 

Kenma squirmed a bit. The kid was sitting a little too close for comfort. He wasn’t sure how to respond, so he figured if he just kept quiet like always, the boy would eventually leave him alone too.

But that didn’t seem to be the case. 

“I’m Kuroo Tetsurou, I live three houses down from here,” he pointed at a house with pale beige walls. Now that he’d mentioned it, Kenma recalled his parents telling him about their colleague’s son who lived nearby, and maybe they could play together sometimes? Kenma had stopped paying attention when they mentioned “play together” because as if that was going to turn out well.

Kenma directed his gaze to where Kuroo was pointing at, and then turned back to the screen of his PSP —which was flashing the words ‘GAME OVER’ because it’d been left unpaused-- wondering if he could get away with resuming his game without Kuroo thinking he was being rude. It would probably make him leave faster, though. Still, Kenma froze in his spot, not entirely sure what to do.

Kuroo, however, didn’t seem to notice the internal waging war within the younger boy. “Say, Kenma, do you want to play volleyball with me?” He threw the ball he’d kept wedged under his arm up into the air and caught it, repeating it again and again effortlessly. Kenma’s heart sank a little. Ah, sportsy kids. There were a fair lot of them in his school. 

“Um…I don’t…I don’t think so…” That wasn’t particularly true. Kenma didn’t think so, he _knew_ so. The only form of physical exercise Kenma had ever done was climbing the stairs in his house, and that was only because he had no choice but to do so in order to reach his room. Playing volleyball with a stranger seemed like the worst idea in his life, and that was saying something because Kenma had had his fair share of terrible ideas up until then.

“C’mon, it’ll be fun! Have you ever played volleyball?”

“No…”

“Don’t worry, I’ll go easy on you then,” Kuroo grinned. “I started playing last year in school but there’s no one else for me to practise with at home. Everyone else around here is either too grown-up or too busy. Sometimes even both. You’re the only kid in the neighbourhood around my age. C’mon, Kenma! I promise it’ll be fun!”

“I’m…not good at sports.”

“I told you I’ll go easy on you.”

“I have homework to do now.”

“Hey! Now you’re just making up excuses,” Kuroo exclaimed indignantly. “Just this once. Really. You’ll have fun. Trust me.”

Kuroo wouldn’t leave no matter how much Kenma tried to repel him by being incredibly impassive and indifferent until it required too much effort to talk him out of it so Kenma finally, reluctantly agreed. 

It was to be expected that Kenma took almost all of Kuroo’s throws to the face while Kuroo guffawed the entire time until tears trickled from his eyes, and Kenma dodged and flinched every single time Kuroo smacked the ball to the ground —which he knew, even without needing Kuroo to tell him, was the opposite point of volleyball— but he had to admit that it _was_ pretty fun. He had had fun. Though when the sun started to set and Kenma made his way home, it took all the remaining energy within himself to reach his bed and he fell asleep as soon his head hit the pillow.

The next day, Kenma was ready to archive the previous evening’s events as a mere nice memory to remember as he continued his normal routine as usual —finishing the level of Kingdom Hearts he was stuck at— but he was taken aback when Kuroo showed up at his door again. This was weird. This had never happened before. People usually never came back. Kenma was used to seeing the backs of other people, not their faces again, especially not faces that seemed to light up at the sight of Kenma. 

And then all too sudden, Kenma’s evenings were spent playing volleyball with Kuroo, the kid who lived three houses from his. Each day Kenma expected Kuroo to not turn up the next day —and he wouldn’t mind, wouldn’t even be surprised, in fact he would be the total opposite of surprised— but each day, at around 6 o’clock, Kuroo would be shouting Kenma’s name without fail and Kenma would put on his sports shoes and toss for Kuroo. Kenma wasn’t entirely too sure how these events transpired to be, but for once, he wasn’t hating it.

Kenma’s parents learned about his new friendship with Kuroo soon enough, and Kuroo was invited over for dinner pretty much every week and vice versa, although Kenma sometimes worried about the fact that all he could offer in response when Kuroo enthusiastically told Kuroo’s parents “Kenma’s tosses are always spot-on, I didn’t miss a single toss during practice today!” was a silent nod and barely a smile. But if Kuroo’s parents had any complaints, they never voiced it out loud and neither did Kuroo. 

When it was time for Kenma to enrol in junior high, it only made sense that he would go to a school where he had a friend. His only friend. Not that Kuroo had made it any less obvious that he wanted Kenma to come to Shoutou Junior High either, especially since he was also trying hard to convince Kenma to join the Shoutou volleyball club. Playing volleyball with Kuroo every evening was one thing, but joining a club in a school full of strangers was another one altogether, and he had told Kuroo as such. 

But Kuroo was stubbornly persistent and never let the subject drop every morning and afternoon walking to and from school —Kuroo had volunteered to walk with Kenma to and from school everyday before he came to realise it had become a need for him to do so because Kenma always slept through his alarm and since that one morning when he’d waited in front of Kenma’s house for an hour, he’d been having to wake Kenma up if they didn’t want to be late for school— so in the end, Kenma gave in and joined the volleyball club. 

He didn’t mind volleyball all that much. Plus, he partially did so just to shut Kuroo up.

Junior high wasn’t that much different from elementary school, Kenma thought, with the exception that he had Kuroo by his side almost all the time everyday. Trying to strike up conversations with his classmates proved to be as fruitless as he’d expected and to be honest, he had given up trying a long time ago. 

He still couldn’t help but feel a pang in his gut whenever he saw Kuroo with his friends from his year or the volleyball team, laughing and talking normally like everyone else while Kenma looked on from the outside. It wasn’t that Kuroo actively excluded him in interactions with his other friends; in fact Kuroo was always coming up with ways to engage him in their discussions, usually by bringing up video games or volleyball or things they did together over the weekend but he gradually realised how uncomfortable this made Kenma feel so he stopped. 

Kenma wasn’t upset that he was unable to be friends with Kuroo’s friends. He wasn’t upset because he was jealous, either. He was mostly upset because he just couldn’t figure out why Kuroo would still want to be friends with Kenma, Kenma who couldn’t tell jokes and usually nodded or shook his head in response to anything ever, when he already had so many other friends from school who weren’t constantly anxious about socialising with people. He couldn’t figure out why Kuroo would still bother to walk Kenma to school and then back home everyday after practice when he could hang out with his classmates instead. 

“Kuro,” Kenma paused the game they were playing on the PS in Kenma’s room on a Saturday afternoon when the anxieties and doubts in his head became too overwhelming. 

Kuroo blinked and turned to look at Kenma. “Yeah?”

Kenma was starting to regret pausing the game because now there was an awkward tension in the air and he didn’t quite know what and how to say what he wanted to say even though he was the one who initiated the situation in the first place. 

“Um…why are you here?”

Kuroo frowned. “Why am I here as in…why am I in your room? You let me in, remember?”

“No, as in why do you choose to spend your time with me?”

The frown deepened. “Kenma, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“As in why don’t you spend time with your classmates rather than play video games with me?”

There were a few minutes of silence as Kenma’s words hung precariously in the air. Kenma was afraid to look at Kuroo’s expression, focusing instead on the game console in his hands, as if the square, triangle, cross and circle buttons were fascinating all of a sudden. 

But when Kuroo finally replied, he was smiling. “Maybe because it’s warmer in your room than in mine,” Kenma looked up to see a smirk forming on his friend’s face. “Or maybe it’s because I just like hanging out with you. And it’s not like I don’t see my classmates at all, I see them for six hours five days a week, you know.”

“You like hanging out with me?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Oh.”

Kenma unpaused the game but the air already felt relatively lighter. He was still mulling over Kuroo’s words as he kicked Kuroo’s ass in Tekken and he couldn’t help the little smile that spread across his lips.

And that was how it had always been. 

Kuroo came over to Kenma’s room to hang out every day after school, and sometimes it was at Kuroo’s room instead —there was no definite system as to whose house they were to go to; it was usually decided with a “Come over to mine today?” “Sure.”— and there wasn’t much verbal interaction as they both played games on the PS or did homework or Kenma on his PSP or phone while Kuroo read or watched TV in comfortable silence. They only talked when they needed to, usually Kuroo reminding Kenma about his exams or to eat his meals or when either one of them needed a lending ear, a shoulder to lean on.

Six months into his second year of junior high, Kenma started to feel a sense of dread accumulate at the very bottom of his gut and he had no idea where that had come from until Kuroo brought up the subject of high school one lazy afternoon on the walk back home. He was talking about a list of schools he had in mind when Kenma realised with a jolt that Kuroo was graduating from junior high that year. He knew that was bound to happen what with their one-year age gap, he just didn’t know it would come with a free Strong Feeling of Apprehension that lasted for months. He got unreasonably sweaty and panicky whenever Kuroo mentioned it, so he kept his mouth shut as soon as the dreadful topic was brought up.

Kuroo noticed, of course.

“Kenma,” It was a month before Kuroo’s junior high graduation. Kenma was feeling more and more detached from his surroundings; he hadn’t been eating or sleeping well, and even on the more decent days, his PSP barely garnered a glimpse from him. He felt sad and afraid, but no matter how much he tried to rationalise it away, it always came back to the thought of not being in the same school as Kuroo anymore.

“Yeah?” Kenma’s reverie broke but he looked at his shoes instead of at Kuroo. They were having lunch at the school canteen, something that was happening more often now, which Kenma suspected Kuroo was doing for Kenma’s benefit more than anything else. Kuroo sometimes had lunch with his classmates, but lately he’d been visiting Kenma’s class during break every day so they could go to the canteen together.

“Have you decided which high school you want to go to yet?”

Kenma played around with the shakshuka on his lunch tray with a fork. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that question instead?”

“I have. I’m going to Nekoma High School. I heard they’ve got a great volleyball team.”

“Oh.”

“You should come too. When you finish junior high, I mean. Come to Nekoma with me." 

Kenma looked up at his best friend and made a split decision. He’d never made up his mind on the spot before, but this wasn’t something that was particularly hard to decide. “Okay." 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Great! High school doesn’t seem too bad now.” His friend beamed.

Kenma smiled at those words. He felt as if an enormous boulder had been lifted off his shoulder, and the Strong Feeling of Apprehension he’d been feeling for months alleviated a little. It was still there, but it didn’t feel like it was an inch closer to suffocating him anymore. He’d never thought that Kuroo would be anxious about being in a different school too, and the realisation made him feel a little giddy, which was ridiculous because Kenma never felt ‘giddy’.

“You’ll wait for me?”

Kuroo ruffled Kenma’s then jet-black hair. “Always.”

Truth be told, that year didn’t turn out so bad. They still walked to school together every morning, only parting at the Shirokanedai station where Kuroo had to take the commuter to Minato where Nekoma was. Classes were as usual. Kenma kept to himself as always, although there was an unpleasant feeling knowing that he couldn’t run to Kuroo in any situation in which he might need to. Even then, Kuroo never failed to text him during breaks reminding him to eat his lunch and not get carried away with his games. After school, Kuroo would be waiting at Kenma’s doorstep, or if he wasn’t, Kenma would wait at his until he came home. Not much was different. 

And then Kenma graduated and Kuroo was there to show him around Nekoma, introducing him to his friends and the volleyball team. 

Life went back to the way it was in junior high. Maybe even better. But at the very back of Kenma’s mind, he knew this, too, would end someday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](http://akaa-shi.tumblr.com) / [twitter](http://twitter.com/seawxxd)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’ll be fine. Everything’s going to be alright.”

“You have too much stuff.”

“Don’t act as if this is the first time you’ve been in my room, Kenma.”

“You don’t have to bring your entire room with you to Chiyoda.”

“You’re not making packing any easier.”

“I’m not supposed to. I’m supposed to be the critic of what you should or shouldn’t be packing.”

They were standing in the middle of Kuroo’s room, boxes filled with books, clothes and an assortment of toys, photo frames and CDs. Kuroo had called Kenma over to help him pack for university, and despite the heavy weight in his stomach for the past few weeks —not unlike the one he had three years ago— he complied because this was worse. Kuroo leaving for university almost two hours away and staying there was way worse than when they had separated during Kenma’s last year in junior high. Kuroo wouldn’t be around to wake him up every morning. They wouldn’t be able to walk to school together and come home together —and, in this event, Kuroo wouldn’t be waiting at his doorstep either. They had become insufferably inseparable over the past seven years; there was never a day when Kenma didn’t see Kuroo, except when either of their families went on a vacation but even then, Kenma knew that wasn’t permanent. _This_ felt pretty permanent. It felt like someone had stuck a band aid over a wound the day Kenma met Kuroo, and now that Kuroo was leaving, the band aid was being forcefully ripped off and underneath it was a bullet hole that hadn’t actually healed at all. 

“Kenma!”

Kenma didn’t realise he’d spaced out and snapped back to reality face to face with a concerned Kuroo. 

“Sorry. Did you say something?”

“I said, pass me that CD album on the shelf.”

Kenma reached for the album and handed it over to him. Kuroo didn’t drop his worried gaze. “You’re zoning out again.”

“I guess.”

Kuroo finally broke off his stare and started rummaging in one of the boxes to his right. He picked out a pamphlet and held it out to Kenma. 

“It’s Meiji’s prospectus. I thought…maybe you’d be interested in it. So I saved one for you.”

Kenma took it. It felt like déja vù all over again. The hollow feeling in his gut intensified and his fingers trembled a little as they flipped open the cover and he was staring at the tall, sleek building that Kuroo would be spending the next four years studying in. 

Chasing. That was the word he was looking for. He felt like he was always chasing after Kuroo, and sometimes, times like this, he felt like his best friend was completely out of reach.

“Hey,” Kuroo’s voice made him look up. “Come with me, okay?”

Kenma’s smile was tiny and watery as he nodded. “You’ll wait for me?” Same four words, different situation. It was ironic, really, and under normal circumstances, Kenma would’ve cringed but he didn’t really care at that moment. Standing in his best friend’s room, watching him firsthandedly empty it out, empty 17 years worth of memories out and then leaving the neighbourhood —perhaps, for good— was definitely not a normal circumstance in the younger boy’s book.

Kuroo took two strides forward and ruffled Kenma’s blonde hair before wrapping him in a tight hug. 

“Always.”

 

* * *

 

At first, it really did feel as if things could be okay. During the first week of Kuroo’s absence, Kenma received an average of 10 texts per day from Kuroo, excluding replies to Kenma’s responses. 

**To: Kenma  
****From: Kuroo  
****Subject: holy shit kenma  
****this place is fucking huge. like, 10 times the size of nekoma. wait. dare i say 20 times? i dare. i really fucking dare.**  

 **To: Kenma  
****From: Kuroo  
****Subject: MY ROOM  
****< 17 photos attached> LOOK!!! AT!!! MY!!!! ROOM!!!! KNEMA OH YHMDPS THIS PLACE IS AMAZIGN** 

 **To: Kenma  
****From: Kuroo  
****Subject: i can’t believe  
****i have three 8AM classes what the fuck is this**  

 **To: Kenma  
****From: Kuroo  
****Subject: volley  
****found the volleyball club. everyone looks really scary. haha who am i kidding i’m pretty scary myself.**  

 **To: Kenma  
** **From: Kuroo  
** **Subject: roommate  
** **is in his final year so moving out next year. so you can move in with me next year. i think you’ll like this place. :)**

 **To: Kenma  
****From: Kuroo  
****Subject: (none)  
****miss you already. wish you were here.**  

Kenma couldn’t help but grin as he read them all on his way home from school.

**To: Kuroo  
****From: Kenma  
****Subject: Re: holy shit kenma  
****thats nice n i know i saw the pamphlet rmb**  

 **To: Kuroo  
****From: Kenma  
****Subject: Re: MY ROOM  
****is that ur roommate in the 2nd pic he looks a bit like yaku-san**  

 **To: Kuroo  
** **From: Kenma  
** **Subject: Re: i can’t believe  
** **do u need me to give u morning calls every morning**

 **To: Kuroo  
****From: Kenma  
****Subject: Re: volley  
****glad that u finally noticed**  

 **To: Kuroo  
****From: Kenma  
****Subject: Re: roommate  
****thanks. i mean, ntgs set in stone yet but thanks kuro**  

He took a longer time to reply to the last message. Not because it was difficult to come up with an honest response, but because there was suddenly the feeling of a ten tonne boulder pressing against his lungs.

**To: Kuroo  
****From: Kenma  
****Subject: Re: (none)  
****ur so embarrassing. i miss u too**  

Kenma heaved a sigh. It was only the first day.

People said absence made the heart grow fonder, but they also forgot the more immediate consequence of absence that made the heart hurt like it was being ripped out and stomped on repeatedly. 

Kenma walked to school alone every morning, and then after volleyball practices, he walked back home alone. There was a gaping hole right next to Kenma where Kuroo used to fill, just like the hollow feeling in his gut everytime he’d look up from his PSP expecting to see Kuroo in front of him, ranting about entrance exams or Lev being an idiot during practice as usual but he wasn’t there. Kenma’s life had always been very quiet —mostly because he made sure it was that way— but without Kuroo’s familiar voice that filled up the spanning silence that Kenma usually provided, things seemed even quieter than was possible. 

He wasn’t the only one that noticed the absence of a tall silhouette with spiked black hair next to him. No one voiced it out loud during practices, but he knew how peculiar it was for Taketora and the rest of the team to see Kenma without Kuroo, one without the other. Kenma _felt_ peculiar without Kuroo, in addition to the fact that he wasn’t captain of the team anymore. It felt weird that Kuroo wasn’t there to give him a knowing grin or a high five after a perfect toss or a well-executed personal time difference attack. He even actually missed the embarrassing speech Kuroo always gave before games. (Not a lot though, just a little. He’d never admit that out loud, especially to Kuroo, unless he was cornered with a gun aimed at his head.)

The sensation of missing something became worse when everyone voted for Kenma to be the new team captain. 

He had just stepped into the gym one morning when Tora appeared and slapped him on the back with a “Well done, captain!” and for a minute he stupidly thought that maybe Kuroo was back and for some inane reason, Tora had somehow mistaken him for Kuroo instead. 

So he ignored his rowdy teammate until Lev and Sou bounded up merrily and congratulated him too. For what, Kenma deadpanned, at the very moment Nekomata-sensei appeared and told him he was appointed the new Nekoma volleyball captain.

This was ridiculous. Was this a joke? How could they possibly think this was a good idea? He was nothing like the senpais when he was in his first year, but more importantly, he was nothing like Kuroo. For one, there was no way he could recite the pre-game chant without wanting to throw up. That was already the first criteria down the drain.

But Nekomata-sensei was adamant that it had been decided and that the vote was unanimous. _How can it be unanimous when the nominated candidate himself disagrees with it completely_ , Kenma thought. Still, sensei was a stubborn person and there was no convincing him otherwise and Kenma thought maybe he didn’t need to be anything more than he already was. Maybe he could just continue being the regular setter and the team could somehow…sort itself out. 

**To: Kuroo  
** **From: Kenma  
** **Subject: (none)  
** **is thr anyway u cld possibly convince sensei not to make me the new captain**

Barely a second had passed after Kenma hit the ‘send’ button when his phone started ringing, Kuroo’s name flashing on the screen.

“KENMA!” Kenma held the phone out at a distance so Kuroo’s enthusiasm didn’t end up deafening him. “CONGRATULATIONS TO THE NEW CAPTAIN!”

“Kuro, you of all people know how much of a bad idea this is,” Kenma cringed at the wailing in his own voice. “I still can’t tie my shoelaces properly. I can’t be a captain to 10 children.”

“Hold on, let me send you the link to that Youtube tutorial for tying shoelaces that I was talking about,” there was a pause and the tones of buttons being pressed. Kenma’s phone beeped indicating a new text. “And 10 children? We’ve got five new first years this year? Sweet.”

“Kuro, that’s not the point.”

“Sorry, but I see where sensei and the team are coming from. You _are_ incredible. You’re the smartest of them all and frankly, I can’t see anyone who can handle the team better than you.”

“…”

“Besides, it’s not as if you’re new to the team. Everyone knows what you’re like. If there’s something you can’t do, like that speech you hate so much, I’m sure Yamamoto would be happy to help. Or even Lev. He would probably be happiest to help.”

Kenma sighed. As much as he hated to admit it —and he really didn’t want to because he didn’t want to make it seem like he was even slightly okay with the decision to make him captain— Kuroo’s words made the whole ordeal seem a little less terrifying and maybe a bit more bearable. 

“I’ll let you know if I’m still alive by the end of the week.”

“I _will_ know, because I’m coming back, remember?” Kenma could hear the grin in his voice, and his spirits lifted considerably at the reminder.

“Okay,” Kenma smiled into his phone.

“And Kenma?”

“Yeah?”

“You’ll be fine. Everything’s going to be alright.”

Kenma was sure Kuroo was talking about the team at the time, but he would eventually realise how much of a foreshadowing those words were.

 

* * *

 

The first thing that Kenma thought of when he awoke with a jolt that Saturday morning was _it’s too loud_. The second thing he thought of was _it’s too cold_.

A loud noise had woken him up, and his bedroom door was wide open, letting the cold wind in.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes groggily, already in a bad mood when he realised that the loud noise and his bedroom door standing ajar were related: someone had slammed open the door to his room ridiculously loudly to wake him up.

And that someone was Kuroo.

“Kuro?” Kenma continued rubbing his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. But no matter how much he tried to clear away any hallucinations he might be having, the messy mophead with a ridiculously long fringe remained standing by the door.

“Oi, sleepyhead,” Kuroo was beaming. “Long time no see.”

“Mhm,” Kenma yawned, his grumpiness at being woken up so early already subsiding at the sight of his best friend. “Not that long.” He was lying. It felt like eons since he had last seen Kuroo. “And I’ve told you a million times not to slam my door so loudly. I’ve had to change my door hinges 50 times during the span of time I’ve known you.” 

Despite his chiding, Kenma was smiling, inwardly squeeing. It was the weekend. He’d been looking forward to this day throughout the entire week. He felt like he’d just woken up to an early birthday present.

As Kenma got up and headed for the washroom to clean up, Kuroo threw himself onto Kenma’s unmade bed. The sight of Kuroo lounging in his own bed was not unfamiliar at all, and frankly Kenma missed it. 

The phrase ‘being in someone’s bed’ was a touchy subject that threw people’s minds in the wrong directions, Kenma knew, but he didn’t really care what sort of interpretations they came up with because Kenma grew up with Kuroo, where most of Kuroo’s things were Kenma’s and most of Kenma’s things were Kuroo’s and most days, if not all, were spent with Kenma and Kuroo on their beds or couches together, limbs intertwined as they played video games or just relaxing. Comfortable. The concept of personal space was lost on the both of them whenever they were together.

But Kenma wasn’t ignorant, either. He’d scoured the deep, dark depths of the Internet and would rather erase the memories of most things he’d stumbled upon at 3AM when he couldn’t sleep, and Kenma often caught Kuroo reading porn magazines borrowed from Tora. He was curious, sometimes, but not curious enough to actually try it out himself. Plus, the only person he was ever comfortable being alone with was Kuroo, so it wasn’t like he wanted to try it out with him.

Right?

“Hurry up, Kenma! I brought breakfast for you and I’m staaaaaaaarving,” Kuroo whined, breaking Kenma’s train of thought. Which was good because Kenma thought he was starting down a dangerous path that he never ever wanted to continue. He shook it out of his head and pulled on a clean T-shirt before leaving the washroom. 

“Okay, let’s go.”

Kuroo, true to his word, had brought back some famous Chiyoda apple pie and Kenma gulped them down with chocolate milkshake that Kuroo had taken away from Sukiya. For the first time that week, Kenma felt at ease. He didn’t realise how tensed he had been with nerves until he’d fallen back into the familiar pattern of having Kuroo sitting at his dining table as Kuroo recounted his university experiences excitedly, spraying bits of pie everywhere, much to Kenma’s annoyance. (“Kuro, you bought pie for me to eat, not to decorate my face with pieces of them spewed from your mouth.)

It already felt natural for the both of them to head upstairs after breakfast, where Kenma wrapped himself in his blanket and snuggled against the warmth of Kuroo’s chest as Kuroo wrapped his arms around him, showing him photos of his dorm room and lecture halls and a new friend he had made who was staying in the room next to his. (“His name is Bokuto and he’s from Toshima. He’s got really ridiculous white hair with grey streaks and I don’t know what he does to make them stand up rigidly throughout the whole day. He probably performs a ritual everyday. That would explain the muffled rap music at 8 o’clock every morning.”)

In exchange, Kuroo asked about the team and Kenma’s captainship and Kenma groaned about his attempts at trying to round his teammates up before and after practice and how much effort it took to even shut Lev up enough for them to start practice. (“Yaku-san was the only one who could control Lev but now that he’s not around anymore just watching Lev talk really loudly for two hours straight is already exhausting enough.”)

The weekend passed by really quickly, despite them not doing anything in particular besides lying around in Kenma’s room and playing Portal 2 co-op now that Kenma had a companion for Player 2. Kuroo even stayed the night at Kenma’s and Kenma didn’t even think to object despite the fact that the last time they had a sleepover like this was when they were 12 years old. He just wanted to spend as much time with Kuroo as possible before he had to be tormented with another week-long wait for his best friend’s return.

On Sunday evening, it was time for Kuroo to leave for Chiyoda and Kenma followed him to the train station to send him off. 

They had burgers for dinner during the one hour they had to kill before Kuroo’s train arrived but Kenma couldn’t swallow a single bite. He was a bundle of nerves and misery because oh god he was staring at another Kuroo-less week and the sheer _loneliness_ of the thought sort of made Kenma want to throw up so feeding his stomach food only to projectile vomit them out on the spot probably wasn’t the best idea. 

But he still tried to put on a front by tearing off his burger into small pieces before chewing them so Kuroo wouldn’t start to worry, but he noticed, of course. The older boy didn’t address it out loud but Kenma knew what he was doing when Kuroo suddenly brought up the new Assassin’s Creed game that Bokuto had apparently told him about and did Kenma already have it? How was it different from the other Assassin’s Creed games? And what level was Kenma already on? Before he knew it, Kenma had somehow managed to finish three quarters of his burger when Kuroo’s train arrived. 

That was one of the many things Kenma was eternally grateful towards Kuroo for— knowing what to do to help with his anxiety, since Kenma rarely reached out for help himself out of fear and guilt and, well, the anxiety itself. It wasn’t pretty, but Kuroo had always been there to witness the ugly panicking and sobbing when his anxiety became overwhelming. And yet he had stayed. 

The sinking feeling in his gut still prevailed, however, as Kenma followed Kuroo to the platform. There was a thickening mass of people, some pulling luggage bags and saying their own farewells. The crowded atmosphere was starting to get to Kenma and his head was starting to spin, but he ignored it as much as he could, at least, until he could say goodbye to Kuroo properly first. 

“Hey,” a hand patted Kenma’s head. “I’ll see you soon, okay? It’s just another six days. That’s…uh…how many hours…”

Kenma tapped the calculation on his phone. “144 hours.”

“Naw, Kenma, I thought you’re a math genius who doesn’t need a calculator.”

“Come up with better jokes next time, Kuro. Not even Lev would laugh at that one.”

Kuroo fake-punched Kenma’s shoulder. “I miss your biting retorts. Please write a book about your best comebacks so I can bring it to university with me.” 

“Sure. Expect it to hit the bestsellers rack soon. I’ll get my agent to send you an email.”

Kuroo laughed. “144 hours is not a lot once you minus sleeping hours.” He ruffled Kenma’s hair affectionately. “I’ll be back before you know it. Literally.”

“…Okay.”

The announcement for the 1900 hours train to Chiyoda came over the PA system and the platform crowd started to thin out as people started boarding the train. Kuroo’s face was suddenly pinched with worry. 

“Will you be okay walking back home alone? Do you know how to get back home from here?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. We used to walk home from the station everyday after school, remember?”

“There’s a lot of people, though. I can call you a taxi—”

“Seriously, Kuro, I’ll be fine. Really. Don’t worry.”

Kuroo stared at Kenma as if contemplating missing the train altogether to walk Kenma back home which was, beyond a reasonable doubt, ridiculous. Kenma was ready to just turn tail and run out if Kuroo seriously did that but he relented in the end.

“Okay. Be careful. And text me as soon as you get home.”

“Okay." 

Kenma waved to Kuroo as he boarded the train and two seconds later, the train started moving.

And just like that Kuroo was gone again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [tumblr](http://akaa-shi.tumblr.com) / [twitter](http://twitter.com/seawxxd)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It had never occurred to Kenma that Kuroo would fail to return every week, and yet despite the multiple promises and words of reassurances Kuroo had made, he couldn’t help but connect his persistent horrible gut feeling to the echoes of the word ‘girlfriend’ in his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the chapter where Things Start To Go Wrong...many apologies
> 
> also there is a slight mention of panic/anxiety attacks in this chapter, as a heads up, and if you don't feel comfortable reading it you can message me/leave a comment and i'll be happy to tell you what happened - don't worry you won't be missing much

‘Loneliness’ was a term that wasn’t a stranger in Kenma’s vocabulary, but he stopped telling himself that he was lonely ever since he started avoiding people of his own accord. After all, someone who chose to stare at screens all day instead of human faces couldn’t possibly earn the right to gripe about being lonely, right? 

Even though he got by 17 years of his life with only one friend, he had never felt the need to seek out more company to surround himself with. He was just contented with the one person he trusted his life with and never needed to ask for more.

But as he walked to school alone and ate meals on his own, he was reminded of how lonely he had felt once upon a time before he had known Kuroo and how lonely he felt now. Sometimes he accepted invitations for lunch with Taketora, Sou, Lev and the others after practice, but no matter how much he tried —and he did try, like, one time before resolutely giving up— to relax enough to maybe join in their conversations or at least loosen up his bundle of tension enough to not be so on edge all the time, he couldn’t do it. He felt as if there was a tall barrier preventing him from conversing with other people ‘normally’ —his definition of ‘normal’ perhaps being ‘talking freely without having to go through a single line of response over and over again, polishing it to be the reply that everyone wants and expects’— and an even taller one preventing others from ‘getting him’. Which, in this case, wasn’t the statement of a sullen teenager that insisted the world was against him in every aspect, but was the mere simple fact that they didn’t really understand what Kenma had been through and what his thought processes usually were and Kenma never really found the need to announce them to the whole world so in the end, he just didn’t feel as secure or safe with people. Well, people who weren’t Kuroo.

He liked his teammates well enough, and he knew they weren’t bad people, but after an hour or so spent hanging out with them, his social interaction quota for the day was filled and he would have to leave or risk fidgeting in his seat for the next few hours which, in his opinion, was ruder than staying and glancing at the time every few seconds.

Such were the weekdays Kenma went through week by week, punctuated only by the anticipated weekends spent lazing with Kuroo and catching up with each other on the things that had happened over the week that were only mentioned briefly through text. (Kuroo had wanted to try out a new sport besides volleyball and decided to join the soccer club. It was going pretty well, apparently, and he was becoming pretty good friends with his teammates. Kenma felt tired at the mere thought of joining two sports clubs and had to take a seat everytime the conversation steered towards that topic.) Sometimes Kuroo suggested they went out to Shibuya or Ikebukuro to hang out, just for a change of scenery or if he needed to get something for himself, and Kenma would even agree, to Kuroo’s surprise. To say Kenma wasn’t a fan of cities would be a huge understatement, but even Kenma could withstand leaving the house and enduring the city crowds now that spending time with his best friend was considered a luxury. 

Kenma was at least able to occupy himself towards the end of the year when his teachers started bringing up entrance exams and he began enquiring further about Meiji University, much to his teachers’ surprise since Kenma was arguably the least participative student in the whole school, probably. The thought of entering university was strangely calming for Kenma. Of course, he’d heard many tales of the fabulous lives university students led and frankly, Kenma couldn’t care less about drinking or partying or hooking up with people, but somehow he felt that university preparations brought him one step closer to joining Kuroo. This didn’t slip Taketora’s and even Shouhei’s attention. 

“Meiji? That’s where Kuroo-san went, right?” Kenma’s mohawk-sporting classmate asked when he saw the extra pamphlets Kenma had gotten from his teachers on his desk. Classes were over and Kenma was packing up his things to head for practice. Taketora and Shouhei seemed to be waiting for him to head for the gym together, which was nice of them. 

“Yeah…”

“Well, it’d only make sense that you’d go there too. I’d hate to see the Kuroo-Kenma combo broken.”

On a scale of 1 to 10 of the embarrassment scale, Kenma would say the phrase ‘Kuroo-Kenma combo’ earned a solid 9, but for some reason Tora’s words were making him blush, and he feared it might not just be because of embarrassment. 

Before he could start to worry about _why that was_ , Shouhei piped up. “How’s Kuroo-san doing?" 

Did people usually expect any answer other than ‘fine’ when they asked questions like this? “He’s doing fine. He comes back on weekends.”

“He comes back on weekends but he doesn’t come visit us? That’s mean!” Tora fake pouted and crossed his arms indignantly. “But I guess he’ll probably get _too busy_ with a girlfriend soon to come back so frequently, eh?” He nudged Shouhei’s elbow with a knowing look. “It always ends up that way. Nee-san only comes back for the New Year now.” Tora sighed exaggeratedly. Neither of the third years had noticed that Kenma’s complexion had turned a deathlike pallor.

His heart was racing and he could feel cold sweat beading on his forehead. He was aware he was sort of not-so-lowkey freaking out right now, but why? What? What in god’s great name was happening? His panic attack was having a panic attack and his mind did a mental scan of potential triggers of the situation he was facing right now.

As he stepped into the gym with his classmates, trying to calm himself down, he found his source of distress to be Taketora’s words. Five words in particular, to be precise. _Too busy with a girlfriend_. Just thinking about that made him want to cry out and punch something. Which, whoa. What the fuck was up with that. Where did these violent tendencies even come from? Not that he thought him punching someone or something would cause much damage to the victim compared to his own fist, but still? Was this his gateway to turning rogue and becoming a criminal?

Practice was a little messy that day and his tosses were pretty crap, much to his teammates’ annoyance and concern. (He was aghast at the fact that he had screwed up that badly to warrant a “Wakey, wakey, Kenma-san!” from Lev that thundered throughout the whole gym. Kenma wouldn’t call himself a power-abusing tyrant, but he had definitely utilised the powers he wielded due to his esteemed captainship to give Lev an extra lap of running.) His head was certainly somewhere else, an endless running commentary of _why was I so bothered by what Tora said? Shouhei definitely didn’t freak out. So that could only mean that what he said wasn’t shocking or out of line or anything. So…why?_ that he even missed a good few receives sent his way. 

In the end, Nekomata-sensei let them off early, exclaiming that there was nothing much anyone could do when ‘our setter has clearly left his soul somewhere else’. Kenma felt so bad and apologised profusely first to the coach, then to his teammates, saying that he’d probably eaten something bad and his stomach had been feeling funny the whole day. Giving excuses for one’s incompetency always felt supremely pathetic, but the least he could do was convince everyone that this was a one-time thing and that it wouldn’t happen again.

He hated having to explain himself to everyone. Being the captain was soul-sucking.

Kenma changed his clothes and quickly left after a curt “Bye” to his teammates, slightly paranoid and wary that everyone was mad at him for messing up. He knew that that probably wasn’t the case, and if it was, they’d probably forget it by tomorrow. And yet he couldn’t help the anxiety that surfaced. All he wanted was to go home and lie down alone for 50 hours or so.

Back in the security of his room, he finally allowed himself to properly ponder about his sudden anxiety attack back there. 

Kenma’s 17 years of his life so far had been plainly uneventful, and he liked it that way. But that also meant that now that an anomaly had appeared in his life, he had nothing in his past experiences to compare it to. 

Obviously he would be upset if his best friend couldn’t come back every weekend and they wouldn’t be able to hang out. As it was, he felt like he was already hanging onto a thin sliver of string keeping him afloat. And, well, if it was anyone else, they would feel upset about it too, right? Taketora was pretty upset about his sister doing the same thing. So that must be why Kenma felt so shit, right? That made perfect sense and obeyed the rules of logic. 

Except it felt like it was more than that. There was more to his sudden anguish and despair that ran deeper than the possibility of not being able to see Kuroo every week. It had never occurred to Kenma that Kuroo would fail to return every week, and yet despite the multiple promises and words of reassurances Kuroo had made, he couldn’t help but connect his persistent horrible gut feeling to the echoes of the word ‘girlfriend’ in his head.

Could this be—? Surely it couldn’t possibly be—

Kenma scrambled over his sheets to fish his phone out of his bag. He unlocked it and quickly tapped a message to the one person who could make him feel better in this situation.

**To: Kuroo  
** **From: Kenma  
** **Subject: (none)  
** **hey this sounds weird but do u have a gf n wld u ever get one**

It probably wasn’t that weird. There was once in his second year when Kuroo suddenly sent him five texts in a row during class asking ‘hey kenma do you think dinosaurs are real’ ‘like i didn’t think they were real but then i remembered there are dinosaur skeletons in museums’ ‘and then it hit me that if they weren’t real they wouldn’t be in museums??????’ ‘but they seem TOO FAKE TO BE REAL yknow what i mean?????’ ‘holy fuck this is fucking me up so bad i can’t concentrate in math’

Surely this time wasn’t any different than that? Just a simple enquiry about girlfriends the same way Kuroo had enquired about dinosaurs.

Kenma sent another message, just in case.

**To: Kuroo  
** **From: Kenma  
** **Subject: (none)  
** **i mean if u hv one rmb to tell me so i can bring a 10 feet pole w me wherever i go to make sure i m always at a 10 feet radius away frm both of u making out in public**

He meant the second text to be a display of his grand wit but he couldn’t help but wonder if there was some truth to it.

_Goddammit, Kenma, what’s with all these second guessing and overanalysing?_ No sane person would want to be within a 10 feet radius of Kuroo Tetsurou making out with a girl. He could probably ask Taketora tomorrow if he agreed. He would probably say yes. Problem solved. Doubt cleared.

After hitting the ‘send’ button, Kenma felt antsy tendrils start to curl around his feet and he threw his phone far away into a corner where he couldn’t see it. Kuroo was probably still at class and wouldn’t be able to reply soon. Plus, he would understand if Kenma didn’t reply until the next morning, he would just assume that Kenma had already went to bed. And who was to say that was just an assumption?

He _was_ pretty tired, his fatigue mostly stemming from mental turmoil of the day’s the events. He tucked himself under his blanket and played Silent Hill for a while until he got sleepy and dozed off.

He was already half asleep when he realised that he had typed ‘if’ he had a girlfriend instead of ‘when’ in his text to Kuroo.

 

* * *

 

Kenma was on his way to school when he finally opened the text he’d received from Kuroo at 4:38AM.

**To: Kenma  
** **From: Kuroo  
** **Subject: Re: (none)  
** **haha. very funny kenma. and no. and i dunno. don’t ask me questions like these so early in the morning.**

Well, that was fine with Kenma, to be perfectly honest. He wasn’t entirely sure what on earth had prompted him to be so rash as to send those texts yesterday but he was all too happy to never bring up the subject again. He replied with an ‘ok. good morning’ and found himself banging headfirst into a lamp post as soon as he had finished typing the last character. He cursed under his breath, rubbing the already swelling bulge on his forehead that was starting to give him a throbbing headache. 

Well, that was certainly a first. Which would be pretty surprising to most considering the amount of time he spent walking while staring at a screen, but Kuroo usually pulled him instinctively out of harm’s way so Kenma didn’t have to do it himself.  

He was certainly a threat to society and himself without Kuroo around.

But Kenma was in a relatively good mood and didn’t let the lamp post run-in bother him too much, clinging onto the word ‘no’ that he had read from his text inbox.

However, Kenma could sense something was off when Kuroo came home that weekend. Kuroo looked tired and he was uncharacteristically quiet and brooding throughout both days. Kenma had seen this side of Kuroo before, a side which he rarely, if ever, showed to the outside world. He’d seen it when Kuroo’s pet cat died when they were in junior high, and also when Kai and Taketora had gotten into a serious fight and Kuroo had to force them to deal with their personal shit outside of the court by threatening them with expulsion from the team. Kenma knew that Kuroo knew if he needed someone to talk to, Kenma would be there for him (by that point it was already more of a given than a choice, really) so when Kuroo usually kept to himself, Kenma let him be, dropping subtle hints that he was always around by bringing him hot ocha and a bag of BBQ flavoured chips (Kuroo’s favourite) or texting him a single cat emoji. Give or take, Kuroo bounced back pretty fast in a couple of days.

So when Kuroo did nothing but read manga in Kenma’s room on Saturday and said he’d prefer to stay alone at his house on Sunday, Kenma nodded. Maybe he was busy with coursework. Or something was up at uni. Kuroo usually told Kenma everything, whether Kenma liked it or not, but if Kuroo wasn’t up for conversation, Kenma wasn’t going to force it out of him. After all, they had never hidden any secrets from each other, and Kenma knew Kuroo inside out to know whenever he was lying.

He was still pretty worried, though. 

Kuroo left for Chiyoda early, before lunch, and Kenma was only told about his departure through a brief text. Kenma couldn’t deny that he had felt pretty dejected over the weekend, but he repeated _it’s fine, he’s just got stuff on his mind, everything will be okay_ to himself like a mantra and reminded himself to check up on Kuroo through text for the next few days.

Except he felt as if things didn’t improve at all throughout the week. Kuroo’s replies to Kenma’s concerns and enquiries were terse and blunt, and Kenma was struck with the horrible imagery of being swatted away with a flyswatter. So he laid low for a while, waiting for his best friend to explain what was up by his own accord, or perhaps during the next weekend.

But Kuroo didn’t come back the next weekend, nor the one after that, saying that he was busy with uni work and he didn’t feel like bringing back a truckload full of books on the train. That was understandable. Kenma supposed exams had to be coming up and all his senpais in different universities would be the same, going on intensive caffeine diets for a month or so.

Kenma tried to reassure himself that that was all there was to it, but he still couldn’t help the queasiness in his gut and the awful taste on his tongue that came hand-in-hand with his anxieties and doubts that loomed over him like a storm of ominous dark clouds. On one hand he didn’t want to seem clingy and pestering —something he’d never been before because he never needed to but now that he felt his presence was unwanted by his own best friend, his old fears were starting to roll around again— but on the other he couldn’t restrain the thought that it had something to do with him— which was very paranoid of him, he knew, since he didn’t exactly do anything to warrant a silent treatment from Kuroo. Besides, they’d been friends since forever, were there even boundaries that prevented Kuroo from telling Kenma things anymore, no matter how terrible or embarrassing they were? But the biggest third hand of all his hands was his worry for Kuroo. It wasn’t like his friend to be so curt and quiet, especially towards Kenma. That was supposed to be Kenma’s role in the embarrassing ‘Kuroo-Kenma combo’.

He could feel his best friend pulling away from him, and he didn’t know why or what to do. He felt troubled enough to want to talk to someone, but the only person he could talk to about stuff like this was inconveniently the cause of his problems at the moment.

By the third week, Kuroo had stopped replying to his texts altogether. Kenma was starting to feel panicky, Taketora’s words choosing the moment to surface from the murky depths of his memories and hit him in the face with the force of 80 sledgehammers. The firm and collected rationale that Kenma had constructed for himself for the past weeks was starting to crumble, replaced by annoying yet irresistible threads of paranoia and agitation that supplied his already perturbed brain with ‘maybes’ and ‘what ifs’ that never ended well. He was getting more and more flighty and fidgety, even his _teachers_ noticed and asked if he was alright. To be honest, he’d like to know the correct answer to that too.

 

* * *

 

Kenma woke up uncharacteristically early on Saturday and decided to head for the gym. Morning practices on weekends were non-existent but Kenma knew for a fact that there were always people in the gym on weekend mornings, and he decided he needed all the distractions he could get, especially so since it was a Saturday and it’d been about six days since Kuroo last replied his messages. Kenma’s way of dealing with distance was providing even more distance which, frankly speaking, probably wasn’t the best method to deal with his predicament nor was it good for his mental health but he was running out of ideas on what to do besides spending literally every second of his waking hour not at school playing games on his PSP. Nothing much had changed then, except Kenma was game over-ing every few seconds, unable to focus on what he was actually doing.

Which was why he made up his mind to go to the lengths of occupying himself with volleyball on a Saturday morning. He didn’t want to exert himself too much either, just keep himself busy enough to stop worrying all the goddamn time.

As expected, Lev, Taketora, Sou and most of the first years were there, and the shock registered on their faces when Kenma appeared was plain to see. He didn’t offer to give any explanations, changing into his shoes and taking his position on the court.

His mind could be a metaphorical volleyball court, where the opponents were trying to spike negativity onto his side of the court but he couldn’t afford that. He needed to block them, reach his arms over the net and forcefully form a wall preventing the ball of negativity from gaining leeway through his palms. Or receive them cleanly so that it didn’t stain his side of the court. At the same time, he needed to counter his opponents with tosses of positivity spheres so the spikers could hit them onto the opposite side as retaliation. He needed to block the temptation of overthinking and respond in kind with reassurances that _everything is alright, everything is fine_.

Man, he must be in worse shit than he’d thought if he was making volleyball analogies.

“YAKU-SAAAAAAAAAAN!!!” A blur of grey hair and long limbs dashed past Kenma as he was gulping down water during break, followed by what was unmistakably the sound of the sole of a shoe coming in contact with a cheekbone.

The short former libero was standing by the entrance of the gym with a grin on his face, propping his right leg up on a lanky half-Russian human doormat that was making tinny whiny noises. No one paid much attention to it. “How’s it going? I came back from Osaka for the weekend and thought I’d drop by.” Sou and Yuuki rushed forward to greet him while Kenma observed from a distance, waving meekly by way of greeting. “Might even join for a few games if that’s fine. I kinda miss volleyball.” A sheepish smile spread on the brunette’s face. 

“Ah, Yaku-san! Don’t you play volleyball in university?”

“Nah. Didn’t think I’d have the time balancing a sports club and a medical degree. I didn’t want to be tied down by obligations but I wanted to play sometimes. Leisurely.” Yaku finally stepped down from Lev’s back as his taller kouhai scrambled to get to his feet. “I hope you’re not still missing tosses and giving Kenma hell, Lev.”

“Nawwww, Yaku-san! We played against Kitatama High last month and I got five spikes through! Even Yamamoto-san says I’m on my way to becoming Nekoma’s ace!”

“THAT’S NOT TRUE!” A yell from the court and a volleyball sent sailing at Lev’s head. 

Yaku laughed weakly. “I guess some people really don’t change.”

“Yeah, I guess so!” Lev stood up for the second time, massaging the back of his head. “Just like you haven’t grown taller, Yaku-san!”

There was the sound of something being thrown —Yaku had upgraded from kicking his foot to hurling his bag— a high-pitched yelp, and then a loud ‘thud’ as all 80kg of human mass hit the floor for the third time in the span of 20 minutes.  

“When will he ever learn…” Taketora shook his head in defeat.

 

* * *

 

“So Kenma, you’re the captain this year, huh?”

Kenma was approached by his senpai as he was locking up the gym. “Yaku-san.” Kenma quite liked Yaku, being able to respect his ability to control the Nekoma team perhaps even better than Kuroo when needed, which was always. He was what the others often dubbed the resident sensible ‘mom figure’ of the team but besides his unnecessary doting skills in addition to Kuroo’s —Yaku kept a packet of tissues reserved specially for Kenma’s sneezes, and in times when Kenma felt like he was coming up with a cold, Yaku was the first person to whip up a cold compress and some paracetamol pills. No one even knew where he got those from— Yaku was reasonable and level-headed, never prompting Kenma to do anything he didn’t want to. “Yes. Although I told the others it wasn’t a good idea—”

“Nonsense! Well, I mean, I see where you’re coming from, but you were elected because everyone saw potential in you, so that must be the reason, right?” Yaku beamed at him. “It’s not like you were chosen as a joke. They wouldn’t do that. And if they did, Kuroo would come down and kill them.”

Kenma glanced away instinctively at the mention of Kuroo’s name. “I suppose…”

“Speaking of which, Kuroo comes back often, doesn’t he?”

Kenma stared at his feet impassively, suddenly feeling nauseous.

“He hasn’t been back for three weeks. And I haven’t heard from him in a week.”

His companion halted in his tracks and Kenma stopped to turn around, startled. 

“You…haven’t?” There was incredulity in Yaku’s voice as his eyebrows furrowed. “Did something happen?”

“No. I don’t know.”

Kenma could almost hear the gears grinding in Yaku’s head. Kenma and Kuroo, not talking for a week? Seeing one of them without the other was already bizarre enough, the thought that they hadn’t spoken to each other for more than 24 hours was an abnormality. Was hell freezing over? ( _Maybe. That would explain how cold the weather was getting,_ Kenma thought.) Sadly, Kenma understood his sentiments, and it made his heart ache even more. He bit his lower lip, which was already thoroughly chewed on due to years of anxiety. 

But Yaku didn’t say anything and resumed walking, Kenma by his side. 

Two minutes passed before, “I met Kuroo at a party two nights ago.” This time, it was Kenma’s turn to look startled. He whipped around, wide amber eyes fixated on Yaku. “Yeah, he came to Osaka with some of his soccer team friends. Said his teammates had connections with the group of people who were throwing the party so he tagged along. Really, I was super surprised when he told me he had joined the soccer club. Pretty ambitious of him, huh?”

Kenma stared at the ground.

“It didn’t occur to me at first, but at the end of the night I realised he seemed a bit…off,” Yaku seemed to be selecting and filtering his words carefully. For Kenma’s sake? He wondered. “It wasn’t even the incessant drinking and ridiculous flirting all throughout the night, but he just seemed really fucking miserable the entire time. Sure, he laughed and talked obnoxiously loudly with everyone but it didn’t seem like he was genuinely happy? It’s not that hard to figure out if Kuroo’s earnest or not after spending three years in the same class and team with him.” Yaku’s eyes were distant. “Even that despicable smirk of his lacked venom. And that’s saying something.”

Kenma digested all of this newfound information. It seemed that Kuroo was still stuck in the same funk since the last time Kenma had seen him when he had come home, if Yaku’s observation of Kuroo’s misery was anything to get by. And yet he hadn’t told Kenma anything. Picturing Kuroo going around flirting with other people while getting shit-faced didn’t make him feel any better either. 

“And then now I learn that he hasn’t been talking to you for a week and that’s…well, that’s downright shocking. I didn’t think it was this serious.” Yaku lowered his gaze and shook his head slightly, scoffing softly. “What a dumbass…”

They had reached the Shirokanedai station and Yaku stopped abruptly. “You’re taking the train, right?” 

Kenma nodded. 

“Well, I’m going the other way,” Yaku pointed to the left. 

“Alright. Bye, Yaku-san. See you.”

“…Hey, Kenma.”

“Mhm?” Kenma blinked.

“I think you should go find Kuroo,” Yaku sighed. “This is probably none of my business…but Kuroo’s my friend too and I don’t like seeing him not…being him.” His gaze softened. “Like I said, he’s just being an idiot. I’m sure he’s got his reasons. And if I see him before you do, I’ll make sure to kick his ass for you.” 

Yaku had a good point. And Kenma certainly wanted to know what those reasons were.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a year later: kuroo tetsurou finally comes to terms with the existence of dinosaurs with the help of a tsukishima kei
> 
> tumblr / twitter


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He hated it. He hated her. He hated that Kuroo was with someone else…and not him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> panic attack warning for this chapter too D: again, if you don't feel comfortable reading it message me/leave a comment and i'll let you know which parts to avoid/tell you what happened.

On Monday after practice, Kenma headed for the Outemachi subway station that would bring him to Chiyoda straight from Minato.  

Winter was almost upon Japan, and Kenma exercised extra caution by bringing along a scarf, gloves and earmuffs. He was usually too lazy to even bring a jacket out during winter —partially because Kuroo already did that for him and it had become a habit— but this was his first time travelling so far on his own, and truth be told, he was incredibly afraid. Subway stations meant manoeuvring through crowds, and it wasn’t news that Kenma got lost really easily with no sense of direction. 

He was once again reminded of how inept he was at doing anything without his best friend around but quickly waved the thought away before he started chickening out. 

Kenma had brought along multiple games with him too just in case he got really bored on the train ride, and also so that he wouldn’t run out of distractions. Distractions from the crowds of strangers, the thought of travelling alone and worrying about Kuroo. 

In the train, he put his earphones on to further deter any unwanted attention, although he could still hear the not-so-subtle jeers directed his way over the music he played on his iPod. A group of university guys seemed to be having a problem with his bleached blond hair and Kenma dipped his head down even more, allowing his hair to shield them from his vision. 

_45 minutes more…30 minutes more…15 minutes more…_ The train ride was seemingly torturously endless and he was starting to squirm uncomfortably from the growing crowd in his coach and this particularly tall man that was pressed against him, his sweaty armpits directly in front of Kenma’s face when it was announced that they had reached the Chiyoda stop. Kenma stumbled out in a hurry, breathing in fresh air greedily like a fish out of water that was returned into the ocean, the pounding in his chest slowing down considerably. He hoped the return ride would be less nightmarish. 

Relying entirely on the Google maps app on his phone to navigate his way to Meiji University, Kenma stepped out of the station, head buzzing from the train crowd, feet and hands trembling from the cold and nerves. He wondered if this was such a good idea after all. He hadn’t contacted Kuroo in any way to let him know he was coming. What if Kuroo got mad at him for that? What if he was busy and didn’t have time at all for Kenma? He had no idea what had been going on with Kuroo for the past month and had no idea what to expect, his mind supplying him worst case scenario after worst case scenario. 

The absolute worst case scenario: Kuroo indeed got mad at him and got him kicked out of campus, with security and all, and Kenma had to undergo another ghastly train ride back home.

The possibility of that happening was enough to make Kenma want to give up —it took very little to snatch away his resolve— but Kuroo ignoring him was eating away at him and feeling eaten in the metaphorical sense wasn’t a very nice feeling. Besides, Yaku’s words gave affirmation that this was the right thing to do.

Kenma somehow, miraculously, managed to get to Meiji University in one piece. It was late afternoon and many university students hugging laptops or books to their chests while chattering away freely roamed in groups around campus. 

He had to admit, he felt pretty intimidated.

He brought up the window for a new text message on his phone and hesitated for a second before typing a text to Kuroo saying he was here and don’t freak out, but I haven’t seen you in forever and maybe let’s hang out? When five minutes had passed and he still hadn’t gotten a reply —people were starting to stare at his bad hair dye job and his hunched figure that suggested he was more than out of place— he inhaled deeply and press the ‘call’ button instead. 

It rang and rang but no one picked up. 

Honestly, what exactly was he expecting.

Somehow, he felt like a child abandoned by his mother at a mall and no matter how many times the information counter announced over the PA that ‘there is a lost child looking for his mother’, no one came to claim him and bring him home.

The only course of action he could think of to take —besides the very tempting and obvious turn tail and head back to the subway station— was to search for Kuroo’s dorm room himself and hope that Kuroo was present. He conjured up the photos and room number Kuroo had sent to him before and depended on the signboards erected around campus to guide his way there. 

He did get lost about two times and tried out the old-fashioned backtrack trial and error method —there was no way he could go up to a random stranger to ask for directions, unless he was in the dire situation of needing to pee or his phone running out of battery and he needed to get to the toilet or a power socket immediately— and about 40 minutes later, he was standing in front of a brick-red seven-storey flat —the words ‘Izumi House’ in white plastered on the outer walls— that overlooked a campus park. The very same building that Kuroo had sent him a picture of. 

Room 531 was on the fifth level and by the time he reached it by stairs, he was out of breath and had to steady himself against the wall to calm his erratic heartbeat. Even as he eventually regained his composure, his pulse rate didn’t slow down much. Right. Well. No point in stalling in this narrow and musty carpeted corridor any longer than he should. 

Kenma wasn’t entirely sure what was going to happen when he finally saw Kuroo, what he should say when he came face-to-face with his best friend. If he was lucky, all of this really had just been a giant misunderstanding and maybe Kuroo had lost his phone and had no way to tell Kenma, and he really had been super stressed out over his studies to come home —Kuroo never got stressed out over anything throughout the years Kenma had known him but, well— and Yaku was the one who was drunk that night and had made an incorrect assumption and Kuroo would be happy to see him despite turning up unannounced and they could get dinner together and Kenma would stop feeling like everything he’d ever known had capsized and was left to drown in a sea of despair. 

Yeah, if he was lucky. Maybe he should’ve visited a shrine before coming here. Kenma never believed in luck, but what the hell, it seemed to be the only worthy variable in dealing with his current state. 

His heart was thumping too loudly against his ribcage as he approached 531, all the rooms arranged in ascending order. A tall guy with cropped blonde hair who was wearing glasses and a pair of headphones around his neck emerged from one of the rooms and ogled at Kenma suspiciously before walking away briskly. He didn’t really blame him, he was the stranger here after all.

531\. He was here. 

It was the only room in the hall that had its door ajar and as Kenma raised his fist to knock, he stopped short at the sight of what was happening in the room.

Kenma subconsciously took a step backward, and then another one, and then another and before he knew it, he was sprinting from the spot, running down the stairs, down, down, down the five flights of stairs he had had such difficulty ascending because he needed to get out, needed to get away from the airless halls and glares from strangers and most importantly what he’d seen in Kuroo’s room—

He was panting when he burst out of the flat to a wide open sky and a gentle breeze made him shiver from the cold sweat he wasn’t aware he had broken into. He was bent over, palms on his knees as he repeated the _calm down, take a deep breath, calm down, you’re not in danger_ mantra to himself. His vision was tunnelling and his chest felt tight, and he tried to exert a firm grasp on his spinning world by sitting down on a nearby bench to calm himself down from this panic attack.

All at once, his thoughts leapt everywhere.

_It wasn’t what it looked like —_

_What else could it be —_

_It’s not such a big deal —_

_So why am I panicking — ?_

Scenes of what he had seen flashed across his eyes. Kuroo, in a crawling position on his bed. Topless. Not alone. Facing someone else lying on his bed. A girl with long black hair. Soft moaning sounds. Hands frantically moving over each other.

He wasn’t supposed to see it. Even more so because it was Kuroo. He had walked in on Kuroo sucking on someone’s face and getting frisky. It was wrong, of course. Anyone walking in on their friend full-on making out with someone else would be gross. But —

Was he also —

Angry?

“Hey! Kenma…you’re Kenma, right?” Kenma jolted from his frenzied trance and found himself staring into a pair of huge golden eyes not quite unlike his own. They belonged to a strong-built guy with white grey-streaked hair and thick expressive eyebrows, bearing an uncanny resemblance to a horned owl. Much to his own surprise, Kenma recognised those eyes.

Recognition flickered across those golden eyes too. “It _is_ you!” He certainly sounded too friendly for someone who had never even met Kenma in real life. 

It was Kuroo’s friend and dorm neighbour Bokuto, whom Kuroo had talked about to Kenma on many occasions. The guy had an incredibly loud voice that didn’t fail to attract many looks their way, much to Kenma’s discomfort, but the owl-like guy paid no attention to them, completely oblivious to the meltdown Kenma was having just seconds ago.

“Can’t believe I recognise you, and here, of all places! But then again, it would be pretty hard to miss your pudding hair. Plus, Kuroo never fucking shuts up about you, always ‘my friend Kenma this…’ ‘my friend Kenma that…’ ‘look at my cute friend Kenma with this equally cute cat…’ it gets super annoying sometimes. Not your fault, though. This is totally on that asshole, don’t worry.” 

Kenma was genuinely taken aback by this sudden storm that had landed on his parade. 

“H-hi, Bokuto-san…”

“Call me Koutarou!” He sat down next to Kenma and slapped his back lightly —Kenma winced— voice loud as ever. “Eh? You know my name? I guess Kuroo talks to you about me too, huh! Well, I’d be pissed if he didn’t to be honest, after all the shit I’ve done for him. All the laundry jobs and 2AM coffee runs. Can you believe that grown ass man doesn’t even know how to do his own laundry? Jesus, I’ve never met such a lost cause like him.” Bokuto was grinning, as if he was recalling fond memories instead of trash talking his friend. 

Kenma’s eyes darted around, at the concrete ground, the trees, the brick-red building. He could feel Bokuto’s eyes boring holes into the side of his face and Kenma didn’t feel comfortable enough to make eye contact with the guy. He swallowed nervously. At least Bokuto’s sudden appearance had put a stop to his panic and allowed him to think clearly. 

“Say, what are you doing here though, Kenma? Looking for Kuroo?”

“…Um…Yeah…”

“I live next door to him so I can show you the way!” Bokuto chirped merrily. “Or if you prefer, I can go get him to come down—”

“I-it’s okay,” Kenma murmured. “I already…went to find him. He’s…busy.”

“Busy?” Bokuto frowned, an eyebrow arched up high. “Kuroo is many things, but he’s never too busy for anyone. He probably just didn’t hear you knocking, maybe? I’ll text him right now—”

“No!” Kenma blurted and stood up abruptly, taking Bokuto by surprise. “It’s alright, I-I have to go now.” 

“Oh! Okay. Do you want me to tell him you dropped by—”

“No,” Kenma repeated, more firmly this time. “No, please don’t tell him…anything. Nice to meet you, Bokuto-san. Goodbye.”

“Hey, wait—!”

But Kenma didn’t stop to listen to what Bokuto had to say. He walked as fast as he could, and then he was running all the way to the subway station. It wasn’t until he boarded the train and thankfully found a corner seat to settle into when he realised that he was crying. He wiped the tear trails away frantically and hurriedly whipped out his PSP to engross himself in wiping out zombies to save mankind instead of facing his own emotions. The train could stop right now and be invaded with real-life zombies and Kenma would welcome them with open arms rather than being left alone with his turbulent thoughts.

He was completely worn out when he dived face-first into his pillow as soon as he reached his room, fatigued from the travelling and the anxiety. Despite that, he couldn’t quite get his brain to shut up enough to properly go to sleep, and Kenma was pretty sure he had five nightmares in a row that night.

 

* * *

 

(4:02AM)

**To: Kenma  
** **From: Kuroo  
** **Subject: (none)  
** **ken ma heY i knpw we havtn talkedd mcuh latel**  

**To: Kenma  
** **From: Kuroo  
** **Subject: bu t  
** **(none)**  

**To: Kenma  
** **From: Kuroo  
** **Subject: i  
** **misss u**

**To: Kenma  
** **From: Kuroo  
** **Subject: (none)  
** **im sorry**

 

* * *

 

Kenma didn’t know what he was expecting when he saw four texts from Kuroo in his inbox when he woke up the next morning but it certainly wasn’t this. 

Kuroo was obviously drunk at 4 in the morning and had, out of pure intoxication and the loss of functional thinking skills, texted him. 

Kenma wasn’t sure what to make of that.

What was he sorry for, he wondered. For avoiding him for so long? For keeping things from him? For what he had seen yesterday? There was no way Kuroo could’ve known what had happened yesterday unless Bokuto had gone against Kenma’s wishes, but still.

He couldn’t just leave him suddenly and then say ‘I’m sorry’ without an explanation. He couldn’t just say ‘I miss you’ through a drunken text that Kenma didn’t even know was genuine or not. What was he supposed to do with this? He couldn’t even think of a response to those messages, so he didn’t.

As it was, he had yet to bring himself to fully confront what he had seen yesterday. Since the previous day, he reckoned he’d gone through the full cycle of the five stages of grief or whatever, probably even messier than that. He was sad and angry and then sad again and nothing made much sense. When he was angry, he was so pissed he wanted to lash out at something or someone, and the image that automatically appeared in his head was that of the girl in Kuroo’s bed, which made no sense at all because Kenma didn’t even know who she was. And then he’d feel a pounding ache in his chest, the kind that tugged at his tear glands as he sobbed in the privacy of his own room, feeling like he’d lost something important and precious to him. 

He had shoved the Meiji prospectus Kuroo had given him into the bottom drawer of his desk, out of sight.

Kenma couldn’t quite piece together his emotions with his current conditions and honestly he was confused as hell. He forced himself to go about school and homework and chores routinely everyday but his head and heart was this huge giant knot that he couldn’t figure out himself.

And then it hit him when he was in shower, two days after his Meiji excursion. 

Was he…jealous?

He had and still felt terrible because Kuroo was ignoring him and that he wasn’t telling him what was going on, that much he already knew even before he had headed for Meiji. It was arguable that Kenma was upset that Kuroo didn’t tell him he was dating someone —no secrets, after all— or the fact that Kuroo had time to make out with his girlfriend —that all too dreadful conversation with Taketora in school made a painful resurface— but not to reply to his texts or answer his calls. That made sense. From a logical point of view, that should explain why he was feeling so fucking awful.

It should, but it wasn’t. Because there was something else, something else he couldn’t place a finger on, but now —

He hated it. He hated her. He hated that Kuroo was with someone else…and not him. 

_Oh my god_ , Kenma felt his breath hitch in his throat as the realisation dawned upon him, staring at the tiled wall of his bathroom in shock before hurriedly drying himself off and pulling the nearest shirt on. His head was spinning, fresh new thoughts popping up uncontrollably. He did the first thing he thought of when he needed answers: go on the Internet.

Three hours and many useless Yahoo! answers webpages later, Kenma came to the conclusion the Internet seemed to be directing him towards. 

He was in love with his best friend.

Which, honestly, what did that even mean? 

Did he love Kuroo? Yeah, definitely, and Kuroo probably loved him back the same way too. They’d grown up together for nine years, this was a given, nothing new. 

But Kenma’s jealousy being factored into the equation made things more complicated. He didn’t want Kuroo to belong to someone else. He wanted Kuroo. For himself. He didn’t want Kuroo kissing some girl, or anyone else for that matter. He wanted Kuroo to kiss _him_ —

Kenma felt his face grow hot and hid his face in his hands, as if he was caught red-handed committing a crime.

_What is this? I’ve never felt this way before?!_ The constricting feeling in his chest, the excruciating twinge in his heart that was somehow 10 million times more painful than when he had seen the ‘read’ status on his text but had gotten no reply from Kuroo a week ago. 

Kenma often puzzled over the obsession with sex and its various forms of attraction and desires among people his age, even Kuroo. He had never thought much about it, since a lot of it was just mere talk and not actually obtaining anything —unfortunately accurate, in Yamamoto Taketora’s case— and Kenma didn’t see the _point_. He was uncomfortable with casual physical contact with strangers as it was, why would he want more than that? He had always presumed it was a matter of choice, like an on/off button, but skimming through the various sites redirected from other various sites, he realised that wasn’t the case for most people. Which would maybe explain why he had had a panic attack for feeling these emotions that people his age probably felt frequently for the first time. 

That was when he decided to shut off his computer and lie down motionlessly, having procured too huge a bulk of information to absorb in one night. 

Well, fuck.

In a way, procuring this moment of realisation meant nothing if Kuroo was shunning him, and Kenma wasn’t sure if he was glad or distressed because of that. On one hand, Kenma was granted the choice to never face his feelings head-on and running away out of fear was what Kenma did best. On the other, he obviously wanted his best friend. And maybe even something more than that… 

His cheeks were still flushed and he felt a bout of nausea coming on. No. He didn’t want to deal with this just yet. He wasn’t ready for the onslaught of epiphanies he was having that day. He wanted to hide from the world until the world had forgotten what was actually happening and Kenma could breathe again and pretend that nothing had happened. 

 

* * *

 

**To: Kuroo  
** **From: Kenma  
** **Subject: Hello  
** **This is a new number. May I know who this is?**

 

* * *

Kenma survived the next few days by repression, and he did so rather successfully, having practised the skill his whole life. He had lunch with the team on Friday and if anyone noticed Kenma was a little more ‘off’ than usual, they didn’t mention it and Kenma was tempted to think that he was maintaining an excellent repute despite his screaming dying soul. All was not bad. Not good, but not bad. Maybe he _could_ continue living this way. No one was getting into any trouble with him over this, and Kuroo hadn’t replied since Kenma sent that blasphemous text. He just didn’t need to _think_ , and who needed to think when you could spend 20 hours a day beating the boss level of Metal Gear Solid instead.

That afternoon, Kenma made a trip to Akihabara to buy more games.

The only times he ever felt assaulted by his own thoughts was right before going to bed or waking up in the middle of the night when all his mental guards were down and Kenma was left in a state of acute anxiety, breathing shallowly and rapidly as thoughts of Kuroo invaded his mind and he had to grab his PSP next to his pillow to prevent further proliferation of his worries and fears. 

He usually woke up the next morning feeling like he’d been pummelled throughout the night and he couldn’t do anything to fight back.

Winter was getting excruciatingly cold in Tokyo as the year neared its end. Kenma’s family had pulled out the kotatsu and Kenma usually spent his days in it, lying on his stomach with his lower half of the body under the blankets as he tapped away on his PSP. Kenma used to go over to Kuroo’s every year during winter to use his kotatsu since it was bigger and Kenma’s family never saw the point in taking it out if it wasn’t cold enough. But Kenma was always cold and he was lazy to persuade his parents and Kuroo always offered Kenma to come over anyway. The both of them would spend the entire day in it, legs ending up intertwined after Kuroo initiated a kicking fight under the blankets. Kenma usually gave in after a while. Plus, Kuroo’s legs provided extra warmth and cushioning and Kenma liked that.

Kenma caught himself and quickly directed his attention back to the game console screen before the throbbing ache in his chest picked up again. Perhaps he should get his parents to bring him to the hospital so they could administer him something that could permanently put an end to these stupid heartaches that turned up whenever he wasn’t paying attention.

His phone had stayed silent for a while now that the silence was starting to get familiar again. Not pleasant though, just familiar.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my poor cat bbs i didn't mean to do this to both of you ;_;
> 
> tumblr / twitter


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Tora, please flip Kuro off for me.”

Sunday was the New Year, and after persistent persuasion from his parents, Kenma relented and agreed to join them to visit the Hikawa shrine at night for Hatsumode, clad in a yukata at that.

“Besides, I think Tetsu-chan will be back! Don’t you guys visit Hikawa every year?” Kenma’s mum was just trying to convince Kenma to get out of the house and mingle with civilisation for once, he was sure, but little did she know that that only made him want to stay inside more.

Kenma and Kuroo had been going to the Hikawa shrine during New Year every year since they were yukata-wearing kids. Kenma didn’t particularly enjoy going at all, but Kuroo was always so excited for the crowds and the many food stalls selling yakitori, takoyaki and other kinds of food one could only find in festivals. Kuroo went as far as to bribe Kenma with red bean taiyaki and Kenma’s favourite, karumeyaki —Kenma truly was a walking diabetes waiting to happen— and Kenma let him. His fear of crowds and narrow spaces wasn’t vanquished quite so easily, but at least he felt a whole lot safer with Kuroo by his side. 

Kenma tried hard not to think about all of this as he headed for the huge throng of people along the streets, his palms already sweaty. He figured he’d at least queue up to the shrine, perhaps get an omikuji for tradition’s sake and then get the hell out of there. 

If what his mum had said was true and Kuroo had come back for the New Year, Kenma wanted to cut the chances of bumping into him down to zero. 

He was aware he was the one avoiding Kuroo now, but he just couldn’t stand to face him right now with all his feelings a mess. Even if Kuroo, for some reason, started talking to Kenma again, Kenma wasn’t sure if he could deal with that. He was already feeling claustrophobic enough without Kuroo’s presence exerting extra pressure on him.

It happened when Kenma was reading his little strip of omikuji — _dai-kichi_ , meaning great blessing. That was an irony if Kenma ever saw one— a hand with lean fingers appeared, holding out a piece of karumeyaki in front of him.

His heart was already hammering in his ribcage as he slowly looked up. 

Kuroo was standing right in front of him in a black hoodie and jeans, a huge contrast compared to Kenma in his dark blue yukata and wooden geta sandals.

Under different circumstances, Kenma would’ve laughed. Was this his great blessing?

“Hey, Kenma,” Kuroo’s cheeks were red —from the cold or something else Kenma wasn’t sure— a sheepish smile plastered on his face. 

Kenma had to be dreaming. He had to be. He reached out to take the karumeyaki from Kuroo’s outstretched palm and bit into it. A strongly sweet flavour flooded his tongue. No. He wasn’t dreaming.

“It’s your favourite karumeyaki from Hiroshi-san’s stall. I thought I’d get some for you since there was a long queue there,” Kuroo seemed to be struggling with his words as well as his hands which were waving around too much to be natural. Kenma had never seen this side of Kuroo before. 

“Thanks…” With a jolt of horror, Kenma realised how much he didn’t want to be here right now. Especially not here talking to Kuroo. Part of him felt his spirits lift up at the sight of Kuroo after so long while the other part was setting off alarm signals in his head. His pulse quickened and suddenly he couldn’t quite breathe. “I need to leave.”

Kenma unthinkingly dashed into the horde of people, ignoring Kuroo’s frantic shouts of “Wait, Kenma!” and it didn’t take him very long to get jostled around by the massive crowd. His slow, fearful movements were garnering vexed glares from the shrine patrons and Kenma could feel his oxygen supply slowly dwindling within the moving walls of human bodies. 

A warm hand pulled at his own from nowhere as Kenma’s panic-stricken eyes met Kuroo’s dilated ones. Despite everything, Kenma felt great relief wash over him. Kuroo was here. He was safe. There was nothing to worry about. 

Kenma followed as Kuroo tugged him out of the crowd steadily until they were free from the masses, in the secluded Omiya Park that was adjacent to the Hikawa shrine. 

Kenma breathed in deeply and his dizziness subsided, the feeling of people pressing up against him from all sides a traumatic phantom feeling out in the cool, chilled open. 

“Are you okay?” Kuroo’s eyebrows were furrowed in concern, arms held out for Kenma to cling onto to regain his breath and balance. 

Kenma didn’t notice his hands gripping onto Kuroo’s like a lifebuoy and quickly released them —Kuroo’s face fell a little. “Yeah…I’m fine.”

“Why did you do that? Did you have a death wish?” Kuroo’s voice took on a slight hard edge like it often did whenever Kenma’s carelessness went overboard and Kuroo was scared half to death over something Kenma did. 

Kenma didn’t reply, his eyes trained on the ground. The omikuji was still grasped tightly in his hand, he noticed. 

“Why are you here?” Kenma felt his eyes flutter shut in surrender. 

There was a beat of silence as Kuroo comprehended the context of Kenma’s words. After all, it wasn’t in Kenma’s nature to beat around the bush. “I wasn’t sure if you’d changed your number,” Kuroo bit his lip nervously. “And I thought you’d come here, so I came to look for you.”

“…I didn’t.”

“Ahh,” Kuroo didn’t sound like he was all too surprised. “Listen, Kenma…I’m sorry for…ignoring and avoiding you. And you will probably never forgive me for what I did, just like how I would never forgive myself either. I was being selfish and only thought of myself. I didn’t think about how much you were…hurting.” Kuroo’s words stumbled over each other in a rush, as if he’d practised his lines multiple times but they were delivered rather disastrously on the spot. “I was—“

“I saw you,” Kenma blurted out before he could stop himself. He felt the grief and anger he’d been suppressing all this while rear its ugly head like a tidal wave he had no control over. “I went to your university the other day. I thought maybe if I saw you and heard whatever explanation you had to give then I could perhaps go to sleep every night naturally without needing to tire myself out with games first so that I didn’t stay up all night worrying about what went wrong.” Kenma chose his words menacingly, hoping they landed the maximum impact on his friend. Judging by Kuroo’s pained expression, it was working. “I saw you in bed with a girl.”

Kuroo blanched.

“Kenma—“

“And for some reason, I was even more hung up than before. I mean, you can do whatever you want with anyone, I guess. But I don’t think you can pull off the missing in action stunt for a month and then waltz back in expecting things to go back to how they were, either.” Heat climbed his cheeks, then his ears. This was probably the first time he’d spoken so much so quickly. He was a pent-up dam of overflowing water and there were spider-web cracks in his walls. Kenma didn’t think it was a milestone to brag about, though.

Kuroo was completely still, shock still registered on his face. After what felt like eternity, “You went to Meiji?”

“Yeah.”

“You saw…Kiyoko?”

Kenma swallowed. The nausea was back. Knowing her name somehow made things worse. “If that’s what her name is. Yeah.”

“Fuck,” Kuroo rubbed his face in exasperation, his eyes glistening. Kenma took that to mean Kuroo was regretful Kenma had seen him, that his relationship with her was meant to be kept a secret because it was important to him, and now that Kenma knew about it, there was no point in coming up with excuses to explain himself. 

Oh god, Kenma needed to get out of there _right now_.

“I can’t do this,” Kenma felt the surge of hatred and jealousy rise again and he was afraid if he didn’t leave soon, he’d spew more hurtful words than he’d like. His confusion for the past few days bubbled like a hot pot of potion in a cauldron, brewing trouble. “I need to go. Bye, Kuro.”

“Kenma, no, please —“

Once again, Kenma left Kuroo hanging as he bolted from the spot, this time taking care to avoid the crowd, only allowing himself to rest when he reached his front door.

He had lost his strip of omikuji along the way.

 

* * *

 

Kenma was secretly thankful they were having a practice match against Komae High School the next day. At least he could spend an hour or more in blissful volleyball oblivion. He never thought he’d live to see the day he would admit something so embarrassing. 

After classes, he headed for the gym, changed into his red #1 jersey and met up with his teammates on the court. The Komae team were already occupying the opposite side as Kenma and his teammates warmed up. 

“The game we are playing is volleyball,” Kenma said passively as they gathered around for a pep talk. “So wing spikers will spike, middle blockers will block, the libero will be the best defense and I will make the best tosses, I guess.” 

“Wooooow, Kenma-san! I’m so pumped up right now!” Lev piqued up cheerfully as the group dispersed after an energetic “YOSH!!”. Kenma couldn’t say for sure if Lev was being sarcastic or not and narrowed his eyes at him.

“I don’t think that’s possible, but okay.” 

Taketora grinned and slapped Kenma’s shoulder. “Our Captain Kenma, practical and businesslike as always!”

Kenma sighed.

The game started with a 2-point lead by Nekoma and they managed to maintain the gap until the first round was over. It was a good, competitive match and Kenma immersed himself in the game, analysing the best tosses to give to his teammates, smiling when the spikers landed the ball on Komae’s side of the court.

Five minutes into the second round, Kenma’s blood ran cold when he heard a familiar and unwanted voice from the sidelines of the court.

“KICK THEIR ASSES, NEKOMA!” Tall mophead Kuroo Tetsurou was standing by the court. “YOU CALL THAT A RECEIVE, LEV?! THAT WAS FUCKING AWFUL!" 

Lev fumbled. “Ahh! Kuroo-san!” He stopped to wave and received the ball straight in the face.

Coach Naoi was startled but Nekomata-sensei just grinned, of the opinion that their former captain’s presence might boost the team’s morale somewhat. 

“Hey, Kenma!” Taketora yelled. “It’s Kuroo-san!”

Kenma was greatly annoyed and shot Kuroo a scowl. Just what was he doing here? He had been prepared to escape from Kuroo but it was Kuroo who had caught up to him himself. Kuroo caught Kenma’s eye and grinned, to which Kenma injected as much venom into his glare as was possible.

“NICE TOSS, CAPTAIN!”

Kenma wanted to fling the ball at his smirking face. 

 

* * *

 

The whistle screeched for Komae’s first timeout. Nekoma was leading 20-15, after Tora had scored them three points in a row. 

“Kuroo’s presence is getting you guys fired up, I see,” Nekomata-sensei smiled pointedly at Tora. Kenma deliberately had his back to Kuroo, but it was hard to ignore him when Tora and Kuroo were shouting their conversation across the court.

“NICE ONE, YAMAMOTO!”

“THANK YOU, KUROO-SAN! HOW ARE YOU?" 

“WELL, I’M HERE IN ONE PIECE, AREN’T I? PAY ATTENTION TO SENSEI, DAMMIT!”

Kenma grimaced slightly and jumped when Kuroo suddenly shouted, “GOOD JOB, CAPTAIN KENMA!”

Kenma tapped Taketora’s shoulder.

“Tora, please flip Kuro off for me.”

“What?!” This coming not only from Taketora but also the other members of the team.

“Do it.”

“But — ? Why — ? I don’t want to —“ 

“As your captain, I am asking you to raise your third finger at Kuroo Tetsurou.”

There was a heavy moment of silence when everyone collectively stared at Kenma, then at Taketora. 

Taketora slumped and turned around, holding out a finger at Nekoma’s ex-captain across the court. “I’M SORRY, KUROO-SAN! KENMA ASKED ME TO DO IT!”

“DON’T LIE THROUGH YOUR TEETH, YOU BASTARD!”

But as Kenma stole a glance at Kuroo’s face before the timeout ended and they took their positions, he noticed the same wounded look from the night before.

 

* * *

 

The match ended 2-0 with Nekoma as the winning team. After shaking hands with the Komae team, Kenma practically ran to the changing room, wanting to get out of here as soon as possible and not face Kuroo. 

His teammates were silent around him since the first timeout and Kenma knew what they were thinking, could almost hear the gears working furiously in their heads. _Are they fighting? But they never fought! Well, not bad enough to warrant even Kenma to get someone else to flip Kuroo off. Did something happen? Was it because of Kuroo going to university?_

The silence was deafening and Kenma exited the gym in a rush after calling out “Good work”. He didn’t understand why Kuroo was here— well, okay, it wasn’t so strange for the former Nekoma captain to turn up at a Nekoma practice match, but had he conveniently forgotten what had happened between them and just decided to act as if nothing ever happened?

Kenma just wanted to go home, honestly. 

He took a different route from the back door of the gym, one that people rarely used. He didn’t want to bump into anyone, especially not Kuroo.

Great blessing, his ass.

“Kenma.” Of course Kuroo would expect Kenma to use the back door. The only person who knew Kenma better than himself was Kuroo. How annoying. 

Kenma heaved a sigh, surprised at himself for not being as surprised as he’d expected. He continued walking without a backward glance. 

“Kenma!” Kuroo caught up to him. “Hold up!”

“What do you want?” Kenma breathed, his voice raspy. He’d forgotten how it felt like to have Kuroo by his side again and he was both happy and fearful at the proximity. What was previously a routined habit felt like a minefield now. His face felt hot and he was feeling a little lightheaded. He was pissed at Kuroo, and yet the familiar trademark Miyoshi detergent Kuroo scent made the butterflies in his stomach have a fit. This, was exactly what he was running away from. 

Kuroo reached out to grab Kenma’s arm, turning him around to face him. Taken aback, Kenma looked up into Kuroo’s dark brown eyes, softer than they’d ever been, exuding affection. Kenma’s heart leapt and he swallowed a gasp that almost reached his lips.

“Kuro—“

Kenma never got to finish his sentence as he felt Kuroo’s soft lips on his. 

The first thing he thought of was _did Kuroo pass out and fall face first onto me_ and then he realised they were kissing, oh god, oh god _Kuroo_ was kissing _him_ and his lips were tender and hesitant —maybe even afraid— as if he was approaching a scared kitten. If Kenma’s heart had been racing, it was definitely a pounding alarm now, scrambling to escape from his ribcage. His fight or flight instincts were kicking in in the face of utter astonishment, his breathing picking up speed, a numbing sensation coursing through the veins of his arms and feet. And yet, despite his lifetime record of fleeing from most distressing situations, Kenma couldn’t bring himself to move from his position. Didn’t _want_ to bring himself to do that as he drank in Kuroo’s presence and the pressure of Kuroo’s lips on his—

Kuroo pulled away abruptly, horror written clearly on his face. “Oh— fuck, I shouldn’t have— fuck, Kenma, I’m sorry—“

Kenma felt what could only be described as hysteria bubbling at the back of his throat. He brought a hand up to cover his mouth as he hiccuped a laugh, the trace of the kiss a few moments ago imprinted in the forefront of his mind.

“Kenma?!” Kuroo’s eyes widened in panic and this time, it looked like Kuroo was the one who needed to run away. 

Kenma tugged at Kuroo’s sleeve. “Is this why you were avoiding me?” He couldn’t help the small smile dancing across his lips.

“Y-yeah,” Kuroo looked bashful, hand scratching the back of his neck. Colour returned to his cheeks and he noticeably relaxed when it appeared that Kenma wasn’t going to stomp off in anger. He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “I suppose all along I’ve always known you mean more to me than just a friend, but it wasn’t until I was alone without you did I truly realise that. You remember I told you I joined the soccer team?”

Kenma nodded.

“Well…they were a bad bunch of people. I didn’t realise this until I detached myself from them and talked to Bokuto, but basically they had a habit of terrorizing other people. Gay people, specifically,” Kuroo looked like he’d just swollen a live mackerel. “I…guess I’d never really allowed myself to come to terms with who I am because I was afraid. I was afraid they would find out about me, I was afraid of myself, and I was afraid that how I felt about you would ruin our friendship and that was my greatest fear of all.”

Kuroo’s words were giving Kenma flashbacks of himself sobbing and quivering in fear in his room upon realising his feelings for his best friend. He understood this fear Kuroo was talking about well.

“Although, really, I was stupid enough to overlook the fact that ignoring you was straining our friendship more than the internal war within myself.”

Kenma nodded again. “You’re an idiot.”

Kuroo turned to Kenma and smiled. “I can’t even argue with that.”

“…You know you can always talk to me, right?”

Kuroo’s voice shook a little. “Yeah, Kenma. That’s where I went wrong.”

They continued walking on in silence for a while, but the tension between them had vanished like a wisp of smoke dispersed in the wind. Kenma’s laboured breathing was getting steadier, the sadness and fury of the past few weeks gradually becoming a lighter burden now that Kuroo was here and talking to him and explaining what was going on. Kenma couldn’t even deny that his heart was singing because of the surprise kiss. It was kind of annoying actually, he wished it would stop doing that thing it always did whenever Kenma bought a new game or whenever Kuroo turned up with apple pie for him. 

_Ah_ , the realisation hit Kenma instantly. It had been this way for the both of them all along, the little things they did together, the furtive exchange of knowing glances that no one else could decipher, the casual touches that meant reassurance and security to Kenma and always staying by each other’s sides no matter what, but it took separation and distance for them to see what they had and will probably always have for what it was. And Kuroo was saying, his words leaving his own mouth, that he felt the same way about Kenma too.

However, there was something still nagging at him at the back of his mind. Kenma cleared his throat, his voice quiet as he asked, “What about Kiyoko?”

Kuroo looked taken aback, as if Kenma had brought something up that he’d long forgotten. “Kiyoko and I are in the same lecture class, and that’s all we are. Back when I was freaking out over my sexuality and how my teammates might judge me, I thought I would…try something out with her and see if it changed…anything.” Kuroo’s eyebrows knitted together. “But in the end everything turned to shit and it just made me feel worse because I was trying so hard to be someone I’m not.”

Kenma stared at Kuroo in bewilderment. “You and Kiyoko…you’re not…?”

“No! No, she’s just…a friend. I don’t think I could like her that way even if I wanted to.” Kuroo let loose a mirthless laugh. “It’s so ironic because she was the one who noticed something was up. Who probably suspected I’m gay before I could even admit that out loud myself. That night I went out to get drunk with Bokuto and what he said made me not want to run away from who I am anymore. And I don’t want to run away from you, either.” He drew in a deep breath. “I’m so sorry, Kenma, for what I did. For putting you through hell for the past month. The least I can do to start making up for my mistakes is to come home and tell you...” They had arrived at the junction that led to Shirokanedai station. 

Kuroo’s words were slowly wiping away the murky layer of confusion and uncertainty that had clouded the window that was Kenma’s mind for weeks, providing clarity. Kenma stopped in his tracks and looked up at Kuroo. “Tell me what?” he asked quietly, although he already sort of knew what the answer might be.

Kuroo’s cheeks were aflame. They were still standing outside the station, people milling around them as if they were invisible. They had been talking and walking for quite some time that Kenma only just realised the sun was already starting to set early, bathing the buildings and citizens of Tokyo city in a pleasantly warm orange hue. Kenma didn’t care much about changes in the evening sky, but even he could appreciate how beautiful that moment was.

“That I love you," Kuroo finally said, voice hushed but unwavering. "I always have.”

Kenma’s face flared red, a bright spillage of crimson across his pale skin canvas. “Me too…I guess.”

“Huh?” Kuroo whipped around, blinking rapidly.

Kenma let out a puff of breath. “I said, I love you too. Don’t make me say it again, it’s embarrassing.”

Kuroo’s lips lifted, teeth snagging at the evening light. “Really?”

“Yeah,” Kenma dipped his head down to hide the smile forming on his lips. “Now c’mon let’s go home, I’m freezing.”

Kuroo noticeably relaxed as he pulled something out of his bag. “What does it say about me that I knew you wouldn’t have brought your jacket?” He held out Kenma’s grey hoodie which Kenma accepted graciously. Kuroo ruffled Kenma’s hair fondly and Kenma’s heart leapt at the familiarity. 

“Does this…um…” Kuroo began slowly, self-conscious. “Does this mean I can hold your hand?”

The red in Kenma's cheeks somehow managed to intensify. “Oh my god, you’re so embarrassing I can’t deal with you right now,” was what Kenma said, but he reached for Kuroo’s right hand, fitting his small palm perfectly in Kuroo’s big one, squeezing it slightly. 

Kuroo squeezed back. “I love you.”

“Shut up.”

“I love you forever.”

“I will literally leave you here and walk away.”

“I LOVE KENMA!!!” Several heads turned their way and Kenma unlaced their fingers and walked as far as he could away from Kuroo who was garnering more and more weird stares until the taller guy ran after the shorter bleached blonde muttering “Sorry, sorry” way too happily to be truly sorry for what he did.

 

* * *

  

** EPILOGUE **

 

“Is this all?” Kuroo said as he set down the final boxes on top of his table.

Kenma looked around the tiny blue-walled room he would be sharing with Kuroo and mentally counted the number of boxes scattered around it. 

“Yeah, 14 boxes. That’s it.”

“Kenma,” Kuroo reached into the box nearest to him that was perched on his chair and retrieved a bundle of video game CDs. “These are all games.”

Kenma looked at his best friend flatly. “And?”

“Where are your clothes and stuff?!”

“They’re in that box.” He pointed to a box by the door.

“Just one box.”

“Yeah.”

“And the remaining 13 boxes are filled with games.”

“And the consoles. My chargers are in there too.”

There was silence while the both of them regarded the influx of boxes and the limited space area in the room to accommodate the contents of the boxes.  

“Okay. Well.” Kuroo’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “I guess we should start —“

“Hey hey hey!”The human tornado that was Bokuto Koutarou appeared by the door, peering in with a broad smile on his face. From Kenma’s perspective, Bokuto’s resemblance to an owl was so unnerving he stopped unpacking midway to stare a little bit longer than he preferred. “Need any help? Hey, Kenma!" 

“Hi, Bokuto-san.”

“I told you before, call me Koutarou!”

“Eh? You guys have met before?” Kuroo raised an eyebrow at the both of them.

Bokuto’s eyes widened and darted to meet Kenma’s. “Is it okay to tell him now?” His palm shielded his mouth in a whisper —as quiet a whisper as Bokuto can manage, anyway— as if Kuroo wasn’t standing next to him and could hear him clearly.

Kenma frowned and sighed as Kuroo shot them questioning glares. “Yeah, last December. When I came here alone to find you.”

“Ahhhh,” Kuroo’s face scrunched up in distaste. “Okay. Let’s not bring that up anymore.”

“Yes.”

“What? Bring what up?” Bokuto was the one left out of the loop this time and he didn’t like it one bit. “Bring what up, Kuroo? Kenma?” 

Kuroo slapped a hand over Bokuto’s face. “Shut your trap. We don’t need you here. Go back to your nest where you belong.”

Bokuto mumbled a “rude” through Kuroo’s palm and left. A few seconds later, there was the sound of a door slamming shut —the thin walls separating Bokuto’s room from theirs rattled a little— followed by not-so-muffled rap music.

“DUDE, KEEP THE MUSIC DOWN A BIT, YOU DEAF BASTARD!” Kuroo bellowed. 

“NUH, NUH NUH NUH NUH NUH NUH NUH, NUH NUH NUH NUH!” The sound of mockery drifted through the walls.

Kuroo looked at Kenma, noticed his grimace and shrugged. “The music stops at night, though.”

“Thank God.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re here now,” Kuroo beamed and sat himself down on Kenma’s bed by the window with a ‘plonk’. “Welcome to your fabulous and legendary university life, Kenma-kun!”

“Don’t call me that.” Kenma climbed into his bed and rested his head on Kuroo’s lap, just like always. The bed was smaller than either of theirs back at home so they had to curl their legs in, but Kenma didn’t mind the proximity to Kuroo this gave him. 

He was finally here at university with Kuroo and Kenma never thought he could be happier. All his feelings he’d discovered that night in front of the computer in his room were out in the open and so were Kuroo’s and honestly? Nothing much had changed from the way they had been with each other since they were young. They had always been just completely at ease and in sync with each other’s presence, there wasn’t much to move on to from their existing friendship. 

Though kissing was definitely one of the perks.

Kenma looked up at Kuroo, who was reading a novel. Looked at his ridiculous messy bedhead that still refused to tame itself no matter what Kuroo did, at his deep, dark cat-like eyes that seemed conniving and cunning to others but actually held infinite tenderness within them —especially when he was looking at Kenma, and truth be told, Kenma didn’t want to relinquish this privilege he had over everyone else— at his soft, slender lips that Kenma had gotten to known pretty well over the past few months. 

Instinctively, Kenma propped himself up by his elbows and closed the distance between them by bringing his lips to Kuroo’s. Taken aback, Kuroo fumbled for a while, book dropping to the floor, before he relaxed and leaned into the kiss.

Kenma was wrong. There wasn’t a bullet hole underneath the ripped band-aid that was Kuroo when he’d left. The wound had healed a long time ago the moment Kuroo stepped into his life.

“I love you,” Kenma’s voice was barely above a whisper when they broke apart.

Kuroo grinned against Kenma’s lips. “Who’s the one being embarrassing now?”

“I meant to say ‘you’re a piece of shit’. Complete slip of the tongue.”

“No, you did not.”

“Did to.”

“Did not.”

“…Didto.”

“Didnot.”

Kenma was glad he was here too.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> festival stuff that were mentioned:  
> [hatsumode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatsum%C5%8Dde): the japanese' first shrine visit of the new year  
> [yukata](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukata): a casual kimono  
> [geta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geta_\(footwear\)): wooden sandals usually worn with yukata  
> [yakitori](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakitori): grilled chicken on sticks  
> [takoyaki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takoyaki): grilled octopus balls (i am aware of how it sounds like...)  
> [taiyaki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiyaki): a fish-shaped cake usually filled with red bean paste  
> [karumeyaki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeycomb_toffee): honeycomb toffee (something i feel kenma would love because it's literally made up entirely of sugar and syrup)  
> [omikuji](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-mikuji): random fortunes written on strips of papers offered at shrines and temples
> 
> you guys know i would never leave you (and my kitten children) with anything but a good ending (　◠ ◡ ◠ ✿ ) i hope you guys like it!
> 
> EDIT: also thank you to @the_anime_cafe for reminding me that this explains the whole "soccer team" detail i never explained in the first chapter of YAAAIAAA. i wrote this before i wrote that so i forgot there's a gap in that continuity for that tiny detail. hope this clears things up for those who were confused!
> 
> thank you so much to everyone who has read/left a kudos/commented! thank you so so much for all your kind words and being such great sources of encouragements for me to continue writing <3 
> 
> part 1 of the series: [You Are an Angel, I Am an Astronaut](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4360877)
> 
> tumblr / twitter


End file.
